Hands-on: iMovie for Mac and iOS
Apple’s consumer filmmaking software, iMovie, has gotten its fair share of both praise and scorn over the years. It broke new ground in its initial release by giving families and budding filmmakers a way to edit films that didn’t cost thousands of dollars. It reinvented itself and how to make films in 2008—though some would argue it didn’t actually make it to the “usability” stage until the next year.
Now it’s reinvented itself all over again; thankfully, this time it left out that awkward, gangly in-between year. Apple’s new version of iMovie is sleek and sophisticated both on the Mac and on iOS devices. It retains a lot of advanced features from prior versions, but keeps its interface clutter- and confusion-free for newer users. And it’s added a new avenue for easily sharing movies to your computer and Apple TV. I could go on like this for awhile, but instead of writing a whole review here, I’m going to cut to the juicy parts and focus on twenty new and improved features in iMovie for the Mac and on iOS.
1. The interface is wonderful—and it’s seamless across operating systems (Mac and iOS)
iMovie has always been a bit of an odd sibling to its big brother, Final Cut, in terms of both features and appearance. It never quite had the same timeline handling, or the right look; sometimes it would be ahead of Final Cut’s development curve, sometimes far behind. This version of iMovie, however, can stand proudly alongside its big brother. It has the same “space gray” coloration and timeline handling, and though it pales in comparison to Final Cut’s feature-set, it still has a decent number of tools in its toolbox.
On its surface, iMovie looks rather simplistic. But dig a little deeper and you'll find all the features you know and love from prior versions.
But unlike previous versions of iMovie, those tools aren’t out in the open—they’re instead secreted away behind simplistic-looking buttons that won’t scare off casual filmmakers or beginners. The first thing you see upon launching the program is a collection of your event clips and a big viewing screen—you don’t even have to make a project if all you want to do is find and share a particular clip. Its initial treatment reminds me far more of iPhoto’s management options than of a piece of video-editing software. But once you open up a project, it becomes clear that those editing chops are still there.
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