Weekend App: Fly brings the fun back to iPhone video editing
Fly is a new video editor with a few interesting features that are guaranteed to renew your interest in capturing video on your iPhone. The app features a gesture-driven interface for editing that makes its easy to create split videos as well as picture-in-picture scenes. The app also has support for multiple camera input, allowing you to catch your friend's crazy bike stunt from multiple angles.
Fly is unlike any iPhone video I've ever used. The app provides you with up to four video sources that you can mix together on a timeline. Editing is done using gestures, which are easy to use once you get the hang of them. You can simply tap to add a video cut, swipe to add a transition, tap two videos to do split screen and use a two-finger tap to add a video as a picture in picture. You also can overlay audio and voice overs, with the app providing a handful of stock music from which you can choose.
The big selling point of Fly is its support for multiple cameras. If you have several iOS devices (either ones you own or those from your nearby friends), you can connect them via a Wifi network and use them to record video from multiple angles. The process is fairly easy, requiring you to setup one device as the master that handles the recording and the other devices as the video sources. Only the master device needs to have the multi-camera option, which is a paid feature available via an in-app purchase.
Once you've connected the Fly cameras, you can arrange them so they capture multiple angles of the same scene. When you hit record on the master device, all the connected cameras start recording and will continue until you press stop. Video from the multiple feeds will be shared over the WiFi connection and synced using timestamps. In just a few minutes, you can take these videos and edit them together in Fly.
Fly is available for free from the iOS App Store. It is compatible with the iPhone and requires iOS 7. Though it costs nothing to download, be prepared to pay up to US$16 to unlock all the features of the app. Individual features, such as the clips editor, gesture editing and the audio pack, are available for $2.99 each or as an "Essentials Bundle" for $5.99. Multi-cam editing will cost you $9.99.
