Apple has churned out Clips to combine videos, photos, music and titles to share via the Messages app or on Instagram, Facebook and other social networks
Apple Clips, unveiled on March 21, has finally arrived on App Store shelves. It is a free and easy-to-use application that introduces an innovative way to create videos with animated titles and subtitles using your voice.
Apple Clips also offers you fun effects such as cartoon filters, funny shapes for messages and full-screen animated posters to let you create totally original movies. Apple's application will also let you make multi-clip videos on your iPhone or iPad without using the usual timelines, tracks or complicated tools typical of video editing. Apple Clips, moreover, can also suggest you to whom to send the video based on the people who appear in the movie or with whom you most often share content. Here are some tips and tricks for using it to its fullest.
Square Videos Only
Apple Clips, like Instagram supports only one type of video: square video. The app formats existing photos and videos and crops them, or lets you zoom in and "crop" them where you like with pinches and drags. Videos look good on phones or tablets - regardless of whether they're viewed vertically or horizontally - but on a TV they look rather odd. You can't, unfortunately, select another aspect ratio, which is a different ratio of image width to height.
Record first, import later
Clips lets you record videos on the fly like Snapchat or Instagram, or import photos and videos from your library. Recording directly has downsides: videos stay square and can sometimes be accidentally deleted. If you keep everything in place, videos are copied when needed, while the originals stay safe.
Create multi-clip videos
Once you start a video, other clips can be added as you browse your media library or record something new. Holding down the record button will set the duration of each video. Apple Clips allows you to move quickly or slowly within your movies to decide the starting point. You can add new videos, select them with a tap, hold and drag them around in random order. You can edit them, delete them, add titles and special effects later as well.
Titles come to life
Live Titles are, by far, the best and most innovative feature of Apple Clips, but it requires an Internet connection. Subtitles are automatically generated as you speak, and appear on screen in perfect sync with your voice. It may sound obscure said like that, but it works. Basically, a secondary audio track is added that is separate from the audio in the original video. Selecting Live Titles - a cartoonish icon at the top of the screen - turns what you said into text on the display that pops up with perfect timing at the moment you said it. By tapping the speaker icon, you can disable this new audio track so that titles appear without your voice. But transcription doesn't happen without cellular or Wi-Fi.
Edit captions in one touch
This, perhaps, is one of those less-than-intuitive operations, but Apple Clips lets you edit captions. How it works: start the video and when the caption appears, tap and hold it. Now, you can use the keyboard-which has come up in the meantime-to edit or rewrite, if necessary, or to add emoji.
Background Music
Tap the music icon and a list of dozens of soundtracks Apple offers for Clips videos pops up for you to choose from, which automatically adjust to the length of the video. The audio quality is similar to that of iMovie. Or you can choose music to your liking. Adding a piece of music over recorded audio, however, is not always appropriate. Clips can be turned off to let you hear the foreground soundtrack, but the app doesn't provide advanced options for adjusting the audio level like iMovie.
How to download Apple Clips
Apple Clips is free and compatible with iPhone 5s (and later models), the new 9.7-inch iPad, all iPad Air and iPad Pro models, iPad mini 2 (and later), and iPod touch (sixth generation). Provided that iOS 10.3 is installed on the devices. Apple Clips can be downloaded directly from the App Store.