Hands-On With Apple's Updated Clips App on iPhone X

Apple late last week updated its "Clips" video editing app, introducing the first major new feature additions since it was first released in April of 2017. The updated version of the app overhauls the interface to make it simpler to upload videos, and it includes features that take advantage of the TrueDepth camera in the iPhone X.

We went hands-on with the new version of Clips to see if the changes Apple made to the app might possibly make it something that people will want to use more frequently.

Clips has been somewhat confusing since launch due to its convoluted interface, but that's been improved in the new version of the app. It's simpler to start up a clip, with the app opening directly to the camera interface where content can be recorded without adding confusing icons at the top. Quick swipes will also let you start a clip using a scene, a photo from the camera roll, or a poster, which is a solid background with a saying like "Check this out" or "Let's do this."

Scenes, aka "Selfie Scenes," are a new feature available only on the iPhone X. Selfie Scenes use the TrueDepth camera to detect a person and then cut out the background, replacing it with one of several animated backgrounds like Metropolis, Riverfront, or Sketchbook, complete with sounds and filters. There are even two Star Wars scenes that put you on the Millennium Falcon or Mega-Destroyer.

Clips, as the name suggests, lets you combine several different "clips" of content, so you can film yourself talking using a Selfie Scene, insert a poster with a voice over, throw in a few photos, and end with a standard video, all of which are automatically merged together into one video.

You can dress up your videos using Live Titles, aka subtitles that are added automatically using transcription, stickers, filters, emoji, and labels that are customizable based on location and time. The new update adds several additional stickers (including Star Wars) and new royalty-free music that can be applied to videos.

Once finished, the video you created in Clips can be messaged to a contact or saved to the camera roll where it can be shared on social networks like Facebook and Instagram.

Clips was downloaded more than a million times following its release, but since then, it's failed to really catch on with iOS users. Right now, Clips is the #44 app in the Photo & Video section, and it does not rank as one of the top 200 free apps on the overall Top Charts listing.