GoPro's mobile apps cut down on video editing headaches
One app is for fast automated edits, the other for more advanced cutting. Both will have you creating and sharing your GoPro (or smartphone) videos in no time.
- More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
GoPro's Quik app can take your clips and photos, and generate an edited video with music in a couple minutes.
Like a lot of people, I don't enjoy editing video. Mainly because I'm not very good at it, but also because I don't want to sit at a computer to do it. Apparently, many GoPro users don't want to do it, either, so in February the camera maker went out and bought a couple of apps to help make editing on phones and tablets easier.
The results are Quik for iOS and Android (formerly Replay) and Splice for iOS. The appropriately named Quik, requires minimal effort, while Splice is for those who like a little more control.
For Quik, you simply select the photos and videos you want to use, pick a style and it will automatically stitch shots together as well as add transitions. It has a Smart Cuts feature to find the most exciting stuff in your video and cut out the boring bits, but for me it left in several seconds of my camera pointed at a fence. Fortunately, you can easily cut the video down yourself, crop the image, choose filters, add text and drop in some music from its selections or yours. The interface is solid, and I was able to create a nice little sharable video in a couple minutes without having used the app before.
Splice promises to put a "professional desktop editor at your fingertips" including trimming clips and audio, the ability to add a narration track, transitions and filters. This YouTube video makes it look pretty great, but I'm on Android and it's iOS only, so I can't say for sure. They are both available for free, so really there's no reason not to try them out, whether you're using a GoPro or just your smartphone. More details on these apps are on GoPro's site.