App Review: Apple Clips is a fun editor with a steep learning curve

After a month of teasing, Apple finally launched Clips, its all new photo and video editing app for iPhone and iPad. The new app looks completely new and is not your usual serious Photos editor. Neither is it as detailed and capable as iMovie. Apple keeps the name short to just ‘Clips’ and like the short name, it appeals to a younger Instagram, Snapchat generation; minus the social aspect.

Limited

Clips basically lets you add some cool effects, filters, text, banners, stickers, emoji and more to your photos and images with ease. Too tired to type down text? Well, simply speak it out and Clips with transcribe them for you. While things appear to be a bit limited in all areas, whatever it does clips is able to pull off well, save for the transcribing bit.

If you don’t want to be a part of the image you can event choose from cool templates. Like everything else on this app, there are just 12 templates to work with. Adding emoji as stickers is fairly simple as well. Just tap on the sticker button at the top, swipe to the left to access emojis, select one (of the few) place and then resize by pinching.

Fun but confusing

Clearly everything just works in the way its supposed to. But as simple as it may look, the app is confusing and comes with a rather steep learning curve, that makes iMovie look super user-friendly.

Launch the app from the homescreen and you are greeted to a number of icons that let you add text, filters sticker, templates and music at the top. To the left of these icons is a drop down arrow. Tap on it an you will discover that there’s no menu there but just access to folders of clips and images sorted by date.

Next to the folders is a ‘+’ icon which is where you can start with a new clip. Yes, you will need to tap on the drop down arrow every time you want to start a new clip, else your new additions get added to the older folder. How I wish there was a dedicated button on the top layer for creating new clips.

With viewfinder in the middle of the display area the bottom bit looks familiar to the default iOS Camera app. You have Photo, Video and Library with a flash button, shutter button and camera switch below them. Below that is the preview of the current Clip in the working.

Adding images is confusing

In case you were wondering, Library lets you access both photos and videos stored on your phone along with your photos and video saves from the Clips app. Adding any of these items is as confusing as tapping on them where they suddenly appear in your viewfinder. Instead of going “huh?” with that confused look on your face, you need to look at the “all-important” red recording button below. Tapping on it lets you add your photo to the current clip being edited. Confusing? Yes, it sure is.

What? No 3D Touch in 2017?

That problem with transcribing text

I tried the app both on an iPad Pro and an iPhone 6S. The app works fine except for when it comes to the transcribing bit. While the app could hear my voice clearly on the iPhone, it could do so (like not at all) when it came to the iPad. This is clearly a speaker placement issue as  I was in a quiet room (which is not the usual shooting scenario for this type of app).

There’s a catch with the transcribing feature as well. You need to keep the red button pressed down not until you have taken the video footage you want but until the software understands what you are saying, that is a few seconds after as well.

In short, you will need to keep the button pressed down until the decoder finished understanding your speech (which is a few seconds later) and then release the red recording button. If you release the button just after your video along with your voice is recorded, Clips will only display the text that has been decoded till then and not the complete sentence, because it did not get enough time to complete the task.

Indeed these are some minor problems that Apple can fix, but I do not see Clips replacing the editors offered by social media giants. The selection of edits tools and templates is very limited and with no social connect (apart from sharing) it’s an app that will reside in a folder or end up being uninstalled quickly.

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