Edible Apple

With his hands on the new iPhone 4, Videographer Jedd Goble decided to put the iPhone’s new 720p camera and iMovie app to the test. Below is Goble’s finished product in the form of a mock vacation video, and while the video quality is great, Goble does have some reservations about the limitations of the iMovie app. But first, check out what Goble was able to put together.

Gobel has published an extensive review of iMovie for the iPhone app, but if you’re pressed for time and/or are debating whether or not the app is worth downloading, here are a few shortcomings Gobel encountered while using the app.

For starters, you can’t preview video clips before placing them in a timeline. While not a deal breaker, things can get cumbersome real quick if you have a lot of still image previews that look alike. Gobel also notes that the iPhone camera will lock into whatever orientation was used at the beginning of the project. The end result is that some footage can come in upside down or sideways if you change the iPhone’s orientation while filming.

Another gripe noted by Gobel is that trimming video clips isn’t entirely efficient, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone used to using iMovie ’09 and beyond. Curiously, the volume of audio tracks cannot be adjusted. That might not be a problem for video montages, but might preclude the overlaying of background music on top of spoken dialogue. And speaking of audio, Gobel also takes umbrage with the fact that audio tracks cannot be looped, and that users can’t add secondary audio tracks after the first one ends. Yikes, that’s video editing 101, folks.

Overall, though, Gobel likes what iMovie 4 has to offer, even though it’s an admittedly rudimentary video editing solution. But as a first effort from Apple, it seems to get the job done, and we imagine that Apple will be filling up some of the app’s shortcomings in the weeks to come. And as Gobel points out, this is the first time it’s ever been possible to splice up and edit video on a phone, so all in all, it ain’t too bad.