Nov 29, 2018 - People are consuming increasingly large amounts of video content these days, and with the accessibility of easy-to-use video editing programs.
This app is only available on the App Store for iOS devices.
Description
With a streamlined design and intuitive Multi-Touch gestures, iMovie lets you create Hollywood-style trailers and beautiful movies like never before.
Make Hollywood-style trailers
• Choose from 14 trailer templates with stunning graphics and original scores by some of the world’s top film composers
• Customize movie studio logos, cast names, and credits
• Select the best videos and photos for your trailer with the help of animated drop zones
• Record video for your trailer right in iMovie
Create beautiful movies
• Choose from 8 unique themes with matching titles, transitions, and music
• Give your movie the perfect look with 10 Apple-designed video filters
• Enhance your movie with slow motion and fast forward*
• Easily add picture in picture, green screen, and split screen effects
• Create a soundtrack using built-in music that automatically adjusts to match the length of your movie
• Add sound effects, songs from your music library, and your own narration
• Connect a keyboard and use simple shortcuts to edit movies quickly
iMovie everywhere
• Easily transfer projects between your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch using AirDrop or iCloud Drive
• Send any project to your Mac via AirDrop or iCloud Drive to finish editing with iMovie or Final Cut Pro X
• Connect an external display to your iPhone or iPad and choose to mirror the iMovie interface or display your video fullscreen while you edit**
Share with friends and family
• Send videos with Mail and Messages
• Save to your photo library or share to YouTube in 4K or 1080p60***
• Save videos and iMovie project files to iCloud Drive
• Share videos and iMovie project files with AirDrop****
• Use AirPlay to wirelessly stream video to your HDTV with Apple TV*****
* 2x speed-up is available on iPhone 5s, iPad Air, iPad mini with Retina display, and later devices.
** Requires iPhone 7 or later, iPad (6th generation) or iPad Pro (2017) or later
*** 4K support is available on iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPad Air 2, iPad Pro, and later devices.
**** AirDrop requires an iCloud account and is available on iPhone 5, iPad (4th generation), iPad Air, iPad mini, iPod touch (5th generation), and later devices.
***** AirPlay requires Apple TV (2nd generation) or later.
Make Hollywood-style trailers
• Choose from 14 trailer templates with stunning graphics and original scores by some of the world’s top film composers
• Customize movie studio logos, cast names, and credits
• Select the best videos and photos for your trailer with the help of animated drop zones
• Record video for your trailer right in iMovie
Create beautiful movies
• Choose from 8 unique themes with matching titles, transitions, and music
• Give your movie the perfect look with 10 Apple-designed video filters
• Enhance your movie with slow motion and fast forward*
• Easily add picture in picture, green screen, and split screen effects
• Create a soundtrack using built-in music that automatically adjusts to match the length of your movie
• Add sound effects, songs from your music library, and your own narration
• Connect a keyboard and use simple shortcuts to edit movies quickly
iMovie everywhere
• Easily transfer projects between your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch using AirDrop or iCloud Drive
• Send any project to your Mac via AirDrop or iCloud Drive to finish editing with iMovie or Final Cut Pro X
• Connect an external display to your iPhone or iPad and choose to mirror the iMovie interface or display your video fullscreen while you edit**
Share with friends and family
• Send videos with Mail and Messages
• Save to your photo library or share to YouTube in 4K or 1080p60***
• Save videos and iMovie project files to iCloud Drive
• Share videos and iMovie project files with AirDrop****
• Use AirPlay to wirelessly stream video to your HDTV with Apple TV*****
* 2x speed-up is available on iPhone 5s, iPad Air, iPad mini with Retina display, and later devices.
** Requires iPhone 7 or later, iPad (6th generation) or iPad Pro (2017) or later
*** 4K support is available on iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPad Air 2, iPad Pro, and later devices.
**** AirDrop requires an iCloud account and is available on iPhone 5, iPad (4th generation), iPad Air, iPad mini, iPod touch (5th generation), and later devices.
***** AirPlay requires Apple TV (2nd generation) or later.
What’s New
•Transform your video with the new green screen effect that lets you instantly remove the background of clips shot in front of a green or blue screen
• Adjust the green screen effect with a 4-point mask and strength slider
• Choose from 80 new soundtracks in genres including pop, chill, and sentimental that automatically adjust to match the length of your movie
•Drop in still images with transparent backgrounds to use as logos or custom graphics on top of your video
• Add photos as overlays to create picture-in-picture and split-screen effects
• Choose to hide the border that surrounds picture-in-picture and split-screen effects
• Instantly return to the edit screen of your project when switching back to iMovie from other applications
• ClassKit support lets students deliver video assignments to teachers using the Schoolwork app
• For users with videos in iMovie Theater, the Theater window is now accessible from the ••• menu at the bottom of the Projects screen
• Sharing to iMovie Theater is no longer supported; save your movies and trailers to iCloud Photos to watch them on other devices including Apple TV
• Resolves an issue that could lead to a black viewer when previewing your video fullscreen on an external display
• Adjust the green screen effect with a 4-point mask and strength slider
• Choose from 80 new soundtracks in genres including pop, chill, and sentimental that automatically adjust to match the length of your movie
•Drop in still images with transparent backgrounds to use as logos or custom graphics on top of your video
• Add photos as overlays to create picture-in-picture and split-screen effects
• Choose to hide the border that surrounds picture-in-picture and split-screen effects
• Instantly return to the edit screen of your project when switching back to iMovie from other applications
• ClassKit support lets students deliver video assignments to teachers using the Schoolwork app
• For users with videos in iMovie Theater, the Theater window is now accessible from the ••• menu at the bottom of the Projects screen
• Sharing to iMovie Theater is no longer supported; save your movies and trailers to iCloud Photos to watch them on other devices including Apple TV
• Resolves an issue that could lead to a black viewer when previewing your video fullscreen on an external display
49.7K Ratings
Great, but needs some bug squishing
I’m really impressed how this app is sort of like it’s counterpart of the Mac version. Just make an app from another app and make it portable. Example, NES and Gameboy. There used to be a bunch of issues on the app, now the whole app needs a bunch of bug fixing to make the app more special again. I swear to god, there are times were videos and audio get squished up into one place. Another time is where I move one photo or video or audio, the whole project gets moved to the side, making me adjust the project again an again if I do any minor thing. All in all, the app is not perfect, but is still pretty great for people who want to create their own movies or videos to share with their friends and family.
EDIT: I believe Apple listened to me, but iMovie has finally fixed most of the bugs I have faced! And to add with that, they included almost all of the music from the Mac version and added green screen effects! Finally!!! We all thank you Apple for fixing and helping other users for this long awaited update!!! ?
EDIT: I believe Apple listened to me, but iMovie has finally fixed most of the bugs I have faced! And to add with that, they included almost all of the music from the Mac version and added green screen effects! Finally!!! We all thank you Apple for fixing and helping other users for this long awaited update!!! ?
This app is bad
Lets start off with my first reason, this iMovie app does not allow you to have your own music so you cannot download a music track or song that you want unless you get a different app and share the music to iMovie but overall it is a hassle to do that. Second reason, this is also about the music deal, when I want to download a song, which I do from a great app Called documents, anyway when I do that it shows the song picture and then the music. You can detach the audio from the video or picture but you cannot delete the video or picture because if you delete either one of those it deletes the audio, that doesn’t make any sense why it does that. Third reason, it’s overall glitchy. For example when I want to add a picture it doesn’t give you the option to select things, which means you can select multiple pictures. It doesn’t have that Feature only at one period of time you can do that which is at the beginning. Fourth reason, when you want to do a trailer you do not have the option to edit what the trailer music is. For example I am a stop motion artist and I wanted to do a trailer for fun. But the last thing I wanted to do was add my own music, then I found out that you cannot add your own music. Wow that is also dumb.
Glitches from iOS 12.3.1 update
Please, Please, Please Fix! I only use iMovie and usually love it...however, Since the latest update for my iPad that includes green screen there are a variety of issues making the app difficult to use....I feel very inconvenienced after having to start again and edit an hour long movie three times! Lagging start and editing, Greyed out clips and a black preview screen, glitches....overlays blacked out, some clips fine some blacked out, also after adding new clips to the edit when I press to play the movie it says it’s “downloading from iCloud” but it never does. I have iCloud Photo Library option on “Keep Originals”, and the iCloud option for iMovie off, yet it still tries to download from it. I even signed out of my device and but it gives the same message. If all the clips used in the project are in full resolution on my iPad, I signed out of iCloud AND I had the setting on “keep originals” why is it still trying to download from this cloud?. The other perfectly fine clips also glitch and sometimes say the same message. All the clips ultimately alternate from being fine to acting out and being blacked out and glitching. Movie taking forever to load or freezing..have tried troubleshooting by restarting the movie from scratch...Same thing happening since update.
Information
![Apple Apple](https://assets.pcmag.com/media/images/504933-apple-imovie.jpg?thumb=y)
Requires iOS 11.4 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
English, Arabic, Catalan, Chinese (Hong Kong), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
Supports
Family Sharing
With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app.
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Editor's Note (3/15/18): We have updated this review to reflect changes made to iMovie since our initial review. The updates did not introduce any headlining new features or interface changes, but they did improve performance, compatibility with iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, as well as support for HEVC (H.265) video compression. We have updated the performance section of this review to reflect that, as well as to add comparisons with other free video-editing apps.
iMovie's biggest draws for Mac users are its ease of use and hardware-software integration. This novice-oriented tool lets you view and organize all your video clips shot on an iPhone, GoPro action cam or high-resolution videocam in one place and create movies with a polished sheen. With iMovie, you can edit movies at up to 4K and 1080p and 60 fps. You can stabilize and fine-tune each clip with color correction and special video and audio effects for realistic action footage. With its built-in trailers and themes, iMovie provides the scaffolding to assist budding filmmakers.
Interface
While iMovie is easy to use, it's not as initially intuitive as some might expect from Apple software.
Like Photoshop Elements, Corel VideoStudio, CyberLink PowerDirector and other competitors, iMovie builds in a library of title styles, transitions and audio tools. Unlike Photoshop Elements and VideoPad, the iMovie interface is subtle, with multiple ways to accomplish tasks and no obvious way to get started. It's helpful to consult the documentation first.
Trailers forces you to storyboard your work in a professional way, supplying a structure for different kinds of clips and movies.
As expected, iMovie is directly interoperable with macOS via the Import command, offering access to your entire file system where you can access all your images, videos and tunes.
![Apple Imovie For Mac Apple Imovie For Mac](/uploads/1/2/6/2/126225516/337727824.jpg)
One potential obstacle to newcomers is that iMovie rejects direct import of DRM-protected files. So if you are using protected audio or video imported from your iTunes library, you may need to convert those files to a nonprotected format first.
MORE: Best Video-Editing Software Under $100
Features
The Trailers feature on iMovie inspires creative presentations and offers a template on how to organize and present your videos, even if your specific movie does not neatly fit into Apple's prefab categorical styles. Why? Because Trailers literally forces you to storyboard your work in a professional way, supplying a structure for different kinds of clips and movies. The program's themes are also useful, especially since they provide as much or as little direction as you want.
Not interested in a trailer? No problem. Just click the Create New button in the Projects browser and start pulling in your clips. iMovie's simple interface tucks most of the app's controls under nine icons on the upper right of the window. A universal enhancement button offers single-click improvement to selected clips, while more-granular controls for color balance and correction, cropping, stabilization, volume, noise reduction, speed, and special effects are also available. Newer versions of the software now support the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar.
If you need features like motion tracking, you'll want to consider DaVinci Resolve, Hitfilm Express 2017, or shelling out for Adobe Premiere Elements. And if you're intent on handling 360-degree video or multi-cam editing, you could also try VideoPad or Hitfilm.
Performance
To test iMovie's performance, we timed how long it took to render a 2.5-minute video to 720p. Our test bed was a MacBook Air (mid-2013) with a 1.7 GHz Intel core i7 processor, an Intel HD Graphics 5000 system and 8GB of RAM running MacOS 10.13.3 (High Sierra).
DaVinci Resolve | HitFilm Express 2017 | VSDC | VideoPad | Shotcut | iMovie | |
30 fps | 8:02 | 5:00 | 3:20 | 5:05 | 2:13 | 2:15 |
60 fps | 15:16 | 4:45 | 4:52 | 7:32 | 3:14 | 4:14 |
iMovie took 4 minutes and 14 seconds to render the project at 60 fps with medium-quality selected. While not an apples-to-apples comparison with the other video-editing apps in this roundup (which were tested on an HP Spectre x360 laptop with a 2.2GHz Intel Core i5-5200U processor, 8GB of RAM and HD Graphics 5500), iMovie was the second-fastest of the bunch.
With a bit of a hack (which involved first placing and then removing a 30 fps clip in the timeline), I was able to render the same movie at 30 fps at a speed of 2:15. That, too, was the second-fastest among free video editors we tested.
Unlike most consumer apps, iMovie offers little flexibility in output options. There's a limited choice of resolutions and quality settings to save a file.
MORE: Best Action Cameras
Sharing
It may be preferable to save projects to your hard drive first, but if you're pressed for time, and need to post a video to social networks immediately, iMovie has you covered. You can share directly to YouTube at up to 4K resolution, publish movies directly to Facebook and Vimeo, and share any video frame as an image. iMovie Theater coupled with iCloud lets you view your productions on any Apple device or via Apple TV, or alternatively, transfer videos between the desktop and mobile devices via Mail Drop.
You can share directly to YouTube at up to 4K resolution, publish movies directly to Facebook and Vimeo, and share any video frame as an image.
You can also share a movie, trailer or clip to your iTunes library, where you can watch the movie via iTunes on your Mac or add the video to other devices like Apple TV, iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.
Bottom line
Apple's free iMovie has gained some cinematic cred over the years, and while new videographers may need some time to get used to the interface, it quickly becomes intuitive and fun to use. Novices get the benefit of iMovie's flexibility, convenient drag-and-drop action, handy access to multimedia files, and deft but subtle educational features that automatically offer clues on how to shoot and construct a solid story. Newcomers will especially appreciate iMovie's template features, which produce professional results that would otherwise be hard to achieve.
Screenshots: Jackie Dove
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