Vimeo is home to super pretty videos so it shouldn’t be a surprise that their iPhone app is, well, super pretty. But what is surprising is that not only can you browse those stellar videos but the app lets you edit videos too.
What is it?
Vimeo, Free, iPhone. It’s Vimeo videos finally available in app form for the iPhone. If you’re familiar with Vimeo, and you should be, you know what you’re getting: a lot of professional quality videos, gorgeous time lapses, interesting movies, there’s just a generally higher standard in their videos. Most of Vimeo’s charm can be found in the Vimeo app and you can save videos to watch later, browse specific channels like Staff Picks, HD, etc, and download your videos to your Camera Roll.
But the thing that sets Vimeo even farther ahead of the pack is that it has a simple video editing feature too. Yeah, it’s sorta like a dumbed down version of iMovie but it’s completely free! You can add titles and transitions, stitch clips together and even throw in a soundtrack. You don’t even have to upload your finished product to Vimeo because you can export it straight to your camera roll. Like a basic movie editing app with some videos on the side.
By having a video editing feature on board, Vimeo is sorta sticking to their guns. They still don’t want your “oh I pulled out my iPhone at a party” videos, they want to encourage people to take time in creating something worth watching.
Who’s it good for?
People who love watching good videos. People who want to avoid the cesspool of YouTube. People who are budding filmmakers. People who appreciate budding filmmakers.
Why’s it better than alternatives?
For one, you get to watch higher quality videos. And that generally would be enough! But the sweetener of the free video editing is so, so nice. It’s basic, of course, but that means it’s also easy to whip an unwatchable video into a sweet serenade of visuals and text (or something like that). The little tweaks instantly make your videos more likable. Also videos dont look shitty when watching over 3G and you get the option to upload higher quality (as in technical quality) videos.
How could it be even better?
The app is strangely missing a search feature which I guess technically places more emphasis on Vimeo’s curation rather than stabbing randomly in the dark for videos but still, search is king. Add search. The movie editing software crashed more than a couple of times (each on different actions: adding titles, exporting, etc) so that needs to be bugged out. A little more video editing options would be awesome but that’s because I’m greedy. Oh, an iPad version please.
Vimeo [iTunes]