Editing video on the iPad is, it pains me to say, "disruptive".

I believe you when you say it's infuriating to someone with formal training, used to the professional tools. I wouldn't know, this is how I've taught myself to edit video.

It's inferior and the software is cheaper. The hardware isn't necessarily, but it sure is if you own an iPad and don't have a dedicated machine for editing video.

And the experience is steadily improving, and at some point it might well "worse is better" the specialized hardware and expensive software which is the industry standard.

Or it might not. Time alone will tell.

It's worth pointing out that the current iPad Pro also has an M1, so the choice between an MBA and an iPad Pro is much less clear along that dimension.