iMovie for iPhone 4 is a video editing application designed by Apple. iMovie is also the name of the video editing software included in iLife, which is bundled with every Mac. iMovie is only available for iPhone 4. (Don't be sad, it needs the extra RAM and Apple A4 processing power).
As with most Apple products, iMovie is very easy to use and is fairly intuitive. If a tap doesn't do what you want, a double tap will. iMovie can be used in either portrait or landscape, but landscape seems more natural for me.
While in editing mode, the top center of the screen shows your movies, the bottom of the screen has the timeline, and the sides of the screen have options: projects, upload media, upload media directly from camera, and play. When choosing media to add to your project, there are three tabs: video, photos, and music. Videos are listed in reverse chronological order, but photos are listed in chronological order. I find this annoying because it's very likely that the photo I want to choose was recently taken and scrolling through hundreds a photos every time gets tedious. Not to mention, scrolling through photos is very laggy. This needs to be fixed.
Editing your movie is a breeze. You can drag clips around, trim the edges of clips, add titles, quickly switch between themes, and make minor edits to transitions. If there is a clip or photo you want to remove, just drag it off the timeline. There is one thing I want to mention about titles, however. They are very nice, but you cannot edit their length. Titles are automatically the same length as the clip you have the title attached to. Another simple feature that is missing is the ability to add plain text against a colored background.
Although there are a few little things missing from iMovie, I found it to be an excellent and quick way to edit a video. This is the first release of this app and I look forward to the changes that Apple may bring to it in the future. For only $4.99, iMovie is worth every penny.
Video and screenshots after the break! (To see a completed movie that was created with iMovie, check out my quick review of the iPhone 4's camera)
Pros
- Very easy to use
- Comes with 5 themes: Modern, Bright, Travel, Playful, News
- Can add your own music or chose from Apple's theme music
- Export as, medium (360p), large (540p), or HD (720p)
Cons
- Titles last the entire duration of clip, with no option to set the length.
- Cannot add more than one audio track
- Cannot split clips
- Must pan over images. Cannot have entire photo displayed in video.
- Searching through photo library has major lag
- Photos are listed in chronological order instead of reverse chronological order
- Cannot add a text slide
[$4.99 - iTunes link]
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