Apple’s New App Tries to Make Editing Short Videos Fun, but Ends up in Total Confusion
iPhone: Apple Clips, Apple’s newest app, is an effort to create a video editing app that works like Snapchat or Instagram, without a social component. The end result is a little confusing, although it looks promising.
As a video editor, Apple Clips is as simple as it gets. You can shoot a video, crop it and then apply various filters. The first filter you can add is a voice transcription tool that Apple calls Live Titles. Tap the word bubble icon and it will transcribe everything you say and overlay it on the video like subtitles. Sounds convenient, but works about the same as any other voice transcription work, which is not particularly good. Luckily, you can step in and edit these signatures if you need to.
You can then click the three circles icon to apply several traditional video filters that change the overall look of your video. You can change filters for each clip, so if you have several different video clips in a row, they don’t have to have the same filter.
If you click on the star icon, you will find a sticker system that you can overlay multiple symbols on. It is also convenient to include a page with the most frequently used emoticons here. Oddly enough, that’s all. Just the most commonly used emoticons. You can tap on one at random to insert it into a video and then double tap on an emoji to edit it, but that’s a weird way of doing things, to say the least.
Finally, you can also add header cards by clicking the T icon, and a soundtrack by clicking the musical note icon. It doesn’t look like it at first, but you can edit the heading cards to say whatever you want. Just select the visual style you want to use, then tap the text to change it.
When you’re done creating your video, you can export it or send it to a friend. Videos are limited to a square format, but there is a lot you can do beyond that, although the learning curve is surprisingly high for an app that sells because of its simplicity. To keep things simple, Apple Clips ditches many of the traditional UI elements, which means that for the first 10-15 minutes of use, you’ll be blindly tapping and flipping around the screen trying to figure out how it all works.
If you can get it right on the first try, Apple Clips will seem like a fun tool, but when you try to edit something, it all falls apart into an incomprehensible mess of random clicks. For example, if you are editing part of a video, you can easily add transcriptions, filters, or stickers. But I have no idea how to go back to the main video timeline screen to add music or titles, unless I go back all the way to the main home screen. It all seems incredibly counterintuitive.
Perhaps if you take the time to learn how Apple Clips works and then learn all the limitations, you can start making good videos. This is provided that you want to take the time to do so.
Apple Clips (Free) | ITunes App Store