Vimeo for iPhone doesn't disappoint
Vimeo released an official iPhone app yesterday, and it does not disappoint. As a 1.0 release, it's impressive. Consider it a one-stop shop for watching, recording, editing and delivering video to Vimeo. There are a few bumps in the road, but all-in-all Vimeo for iPhone is a solid offering. Here's my experience with the app.
UI
Vimeo for iPhone is a portrait orientation kind of app. Unless you're shooting or viewing video, it wants to be vertical. You're first presented with your video library, aptly named "My Video Library." Across the top of the screen are the Camera and New ("+") buttons, followed by a list of your previously-uploaded videos. These can be viewed in list or thumbnail layout, and sorted by date or number of views. A search function returns results as you type, which is nice.
At the bottom of the screen you'll find buttons for My Videos, Recordings, My Stuff (which includes sub-tabs for Inbox, Watch Later and Likes,) Browse (by channel) and finally account information.
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Browsing your videos in list view provides information on views, number of favorites and comments at a glance. Otherwise, tap a video to find those details and more, like tags, privacy setting, stats and licensing options.
Speaking of stats, here's one of my complaints. Like much of the app, they're only available in portrait orientation. The amount of information available -- like number of plays, loads, finishes, likes and so on across days, weeks and months, sorted by location -- is extensive. There's a lot of scrolling to be done, much of which could be eliminated with landscape presentation.
As for shooting and editing video, Vimeo for iPhone looks great. While shooting, your subject goes full-screen as you'd expect and the three semi-opaque buttons, Start/Stop, Menu and Recordings, are unobtrusive. Finally, the editor looks great, putting your footage in the upper left-hand corner with a project summary to the right and timeline across the bottom. Now, let's talk about how it works.
Use
There are five things one might do with Vimeo for iPhone. Check stats on their own videos, view others' submissions, shoot video, edit video and finally post a completed project to Vimeo.com for all to see. That's quite a bit, and each one is pulled off well.
View your videos
To view our own videos, simply tap "My Videos" in the lower left-hand corner. Each will be listed above. Sort as you wish and tap any thumbnail to play the video. For more detail, tap the information to the right of the thumbnail. There you'll find options to share, tag and add your video to a group. You can also see who has listed it as a favorite and read comments. Additionally, you can determine privacy and licensing settings. Finally, and this is the coolest bit, you can opt to re-download an existing video for further editing or replace a video with a new copy.
View others' videos
Tap the Browse button to see a list of channels. Each contains a number of videos for you to watch. For example, as of this writing the Staff Picks channel lists 20 videos. Next to every thumbnail you'll find the title, author and date added. Tap for more information, like an option to leave a comment, mark a clip as a favorite or save for later. Finally, hit the familiar triangle to watch.
Shooting video
This process will be familiar to anyone who's shot video with an iPhone. To get started, tap the blue Camera button that's available on the My Videos and Recordings screens. The rear camera is activated and you'll see three buttons across the bottom of the screen (both landscape and portrait). The first returns you to the last screen, the middle button starts and stops the recording and the settings button offers a few nice options. The flash can be turned off, on or set to automatic. Fill options let you fill the recording area with your subject or go letterbox and finally grid overlays let you compose the perfect shot.
I quite like the exposure and focus features. Tap once to focus on a given area. Double-tap and an iris icon briefly appears, setting the exposure to that area. It's nice to have these functions separated.
When you're done recording, your clip "jumps" down to your Recordings library.
Editing Video
Tap any clip in your Recordings library and then tap Open in Video Editor. You'll see the clip on the left, an information panel on the right and the timeline on the bottom. Tap the clip once to play and again to pause. You can also go full-screen if you like.
There are three tracks in the timeline: video, titles and audio. Tap your video to perform some simple trimming, much as you would with Apple's Photos or iMovie apps. You can also add additional clips or even photos from the Photos app. Just tap the "+" at the end of the timeline to open up an options window. Then grab existing video or photos from our library or shoot something new. The new addition will be placed at the end of the timeline, but clips can be re-ordered with a tap and drag.
Adding titles is limited but effective. Again, tap the "+" at the end of the timeline to produce the titles window. Here you can type your title and adjust its size, position and title. Hit Done when you're finished and it will appear over the selected clip.
The sound options are pretty cool. Tap the "+" to bring up the audio window. You've got two main choices: the audio library or record your own. The library contains a number of tracks that you're free to insert into your project.
Alternatively, you can record your own audio. Tap the Recordings microphone and then tap Star Recording. Speak your audio or hold the iPhone up close to a bit of external audio. Next, give that snippet a name (it'll be saved for later use). Tap Add and it'll be added to your library. Finally, tap the clip you'd like to add to your project and it'll appear in the timeline.
Even when you've got multiple audio, titles and video clips, the whole thing is neat and tidy. Editing is intuitive, as I was able to figure everything out with a minimum of tapping.
Sharing your video
Here's where I ran into trouble. Once in the Recordings library, tap the project you'd like to share and hit Export and off it goes. Usually. I had a few crashes here, just as the export was beginning. Fortunately the project was undamaged, and the upload eventually completed, but it was a bit annoying.
Conclusion
Vimeo for iPhone is a solid app. You can't really beat shooting, editing and posting to Vimeo from a single device, let a lone a single app. In the future I'd like to see landscape options and less crashing during upload. But still, I have to recommend this app for Vimeo customers. You'll enjoy it. My only issues were no landscape mode when viewing stats, and a couple of crashes at export.
