Popular video service Vimeo finally released its long-awaited iPhone app in the App Store, it’s free and, from a first quick test, it seems packed with functionalities. Vimeo fans have been asking for months (years?) to have the possibility to browse videos in a native interface and upload media directly from their devices, but Vimeo delivered more than expected and it definitely appears the wait was well worth it.
Besides letting you browse Vimeo sections, your videos, likes and tags, the Vimeo app packs a full-featured video editor that allows you to record new material and edit it with transitions, titles, audio and video trimming support. The UI is quite polished and elegant, and the app feels responsive although not just as fast as Apple’s iMovie. The fact that Vimeo, however, managed to release an uploading tool that’s also a movie editor with lots of functionalities is just great. You can combine videos together and control volume levels, add music or your own recordings from the iPod library and decide whether videos should be saved to the camera roll or uploaded to Vimeo. The Project Summary panel in the video editor gives you additional details on the video you’re editing, such as the total amount of clips you’ve inserted, duration and resolution. Even pinch to zoom is supported. Furthermore, the Vimeo app gives you control over the quality of the uploads – you can send raw footage or edited videos in SD or HD off to the service’s servers. Last, uploads can be paused and resumed. I love this feature.
The “My Stuff” tab in the bottom toolbar lets you watch your video inbox, likes and watch later queue – perfect if you usually save a lot of videos for later from the desktop browser and you want to watch them on the iPhone whenever you want. Your own videos come with the stats you know and love like daily views, likes and comment, and you can also manage those videos by sending them to a specific group, channel or album. Sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, Email and SMS is supported, too.
The Vimeo iPhone app looks like a real gem, and I’ll be testing it with my iPhone videos throughout the week. It’s pretty clear however that lots of work went into this app, which brings the complete Vimeo experience to the iPhone with a sweet interface and several features previously only available on the desktop web browser. You can find Vimeo for iPhone in the App Store. More screenshots below.
