As someone who enjoys doing film projects every once in a while, I am constantly on the lookout for inspiration. But the quest to find fresh ideas — especially while on the road— is greatly impeded by the lack of video content sources that are available to the iPhone.
Vimeo is one of my favorite sites to find inspiration for all sorts of projects. Luckily for us, their newest redesigns to their site have also brought redesigned iOS apps. Quality content is now available at our fingertips — and better yet, we can even contribute our own work right from the application. Read more about it after the break.
The Design
Let’s face it. Vimeo has never been ugly. Unlike their main competitor YouTube, Vimeo embraces the use of design to deliver the best user experience possible. This philosophy definitely carries through to Vimeo’s iPhone app as well.
The clean design of the app is immediately shown to the user
The app is designed simply; pops of color are used sparingly to add a bit of liveliness to the professional navy and grey that decks out the majority of the app. Lists are clean and the homepage’s artwork is done very well. In fact, the artwork is simple enough that I feel the captions under each of the options on the homepage would not be necessary so long as people are somewhat familiar to Vimeo’s web service.
Forget being buried under layers and layers of content, Vimeo’s new user interface presents you with everything you could possibly need on one page which lessens the time you spend searching around for every function the app has to offer. Layers are inevitable while working with screen real estate that’s as small as the iPhone, but the amount of layers and lists that are opened in this app are minimal.
Functionality
Yes, Vimeo’s wonderful user interface is functional as well. So much so, it will make you never want to go back to YouTube’s messy layout. It would be like going from a well paying job to one that pays in Trident Layers gum — and no one wants that.
Vimeo's gorgeous homepage makes great use of icons
The homepage of this app is the epitome of functionality. It is where you start and it is the one place where you will always return. Everything you want in the app is available on the homepage. No, you do not have to navigate to a certain tab within the app to search a video, as the search function is on the homepage. How about your liked videos, projects, featured videos? They’re there too.
Individual video detail pages are super functional as well. Video pages feature everything in one, cohesive layer. Liking, adding videos to the “Watch Later” playlist, and sharing videos is as simple as a click of a button; comments, credits, video information and even licensing information are also accessible from this one page.
Video pages are robust and have the same functionality and features as the web version of the service
Vimeo’s video quality — even in the iPhone app — is spectacular. Some of these videos are so crisp and clear it will make you want to reach in and touch what is being filmed. The picture quality even looks stellar on older devices that do not have Retina displays. Even though it doesn’t seem like a big deal, it just makes the video watching experience that much more appealing.
Nothing is flawless, though. The first “flaw” isn’t so much a problem, but a fact. In order to use this application, you must be a member of Vimeo. If you don’t have an account, you can sign up easily within the application itself. The second is most definitely a flaw: being somewhat of a “first release,” this application does have some crashing issues. Crashing hasn’t been too big of a problem for me, but many people have been reporting that the app crashes a lot. This bug is nothing an update can’t fix, and I would not worry about it too much.
Contribute Your Work
As mentioned before, Vimeo’s iPhone app allows you to contribute and even create your own work from within the application. That’s right, there is an uploader as well as an editor built right into the app.
The app's built-in video editor allows for simple video editing on the go
Within the Projects tab of the homepage lies a relatively basic video editing system. This feature is a little bit hard to figure out at first, but after fiddling around with it for about a minute or two, it is easy to get the hang of.
The editor allows you to add video, audio, titles and even transitions to make quick projects when you’re on the go. Video as well as photos can be taken from your photo and video libraries, or can be recorded from your device’s cameras. A library of royalty free tracks are available for download, or you can record your own audio sample. Titles and transitions (pans) are very basic but there isn’t very much to expect from a free video editor for iPhone. You can also preview your work as you go on so you can get a glimpse of the finished project.
You can manage several of these on-the-go projects at once, and can upload them right from the editor itself. In my opinion, it’s a pretty nifty feature that will come in handy for many people. Of course, if you already had a video on your iPhone that you wanted to upload to the service, you can do so through the uploader available on the bottom of the homepage.
Manage Your Account
Along with adding content to your Vimeo page, the app allows you to manage the content that is displayed on it. Video information such as tags, title and descriptions are easily editable through the “My Videos” panel. You can also delete videos you no longer want on your channel right in the application.
Stats for your content are available at your fingertips- even if you aren't a Vimeo Plus Member
Another cool feature about this application is video statistics. You can view statistics for all the videos on your page as well as stats for individual videos. Top plays, loads, likes and even embed sources are available at your fingertips. Vimeo even provides some demographic information by supplying information about which countries the video has been played in. Pretty neat!
You are able to share your videos (and others as well) with your friends across a wide array of networks. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and WordPress are already integrated into the app; you can email or SMS the links if you prefer.
The Verdict
I think it is safe to say that Vimeo has created a pretty solid application. The clean user interface puts many to shame, and provides users with content of unmatched quality. Not only that, but anyone is able channel their inner director and create their own film projects right from their iPhone.
The app does have its bugs, but that is to be expected with a new release of any application, and is nothing a future update will be unable to fix. That being said, I highly recommend that everyone check out Vimeo — it’s free so there’s nothing to lose!