Apple reportedly developing own social video app

Apple reportedly developing own social video app

PanARMENIAN.Net - Apple Inc., seeking to capitalize on the popularity of social networks, is developing a video sharing and editing application and is testing new related features for its iPhone and iPad operating systems, Bloomberg reports.

The early plans are part of a newly directed focus to integrate social networking applications within Apple’s mobile products and are a response to the success of social media-focused companies such as Facebook Inc. and Snapchat Inc., according to people familiar with Apple’s strategy. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

The company’s upcoming update of its mobile operating system, which will run on recent iPhone and iPad models, will include an overhauled messaging application aimed squarely at Facebook’s Messenger and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat. The updated iMessage, which Apple announced in June, will include new animated effects like balloons and fireworks to illustrate text messages, an App Store with plug-ins for sending animated images and stickers, and tools to draw on top of photos and videos.

Now Apple is starting to develop a video sharing app that allows users to record video, apply filters and drawings to the media -- much like Snapchat does -- and send it to contacts or via existing social networks such as Twitter Inc., according to the people familiar with its development. The software is currently being designed to be used mostly with one hand and with the intention that video could be shot, edited, and uploaded in less than 1 minute, the people said. At least one of the prototype designs for the app would shoot video in an Instagram-like square shape, one of the people said.

The goal behind the project’s development is to offer simple video editing with tools that appeal to the generation of users growing up with Snapchat and Instagram, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. Snapchat told investors in April that more than one-third of its daily users create their own photo-and-video “Stories” of their daily lives. Apple’s current plan calls for its project to become a stand-alone app, presumably as a download via the App Store, but the company may decide to package the functionality into the iPhone’s existing camera application, the people said.

The app is being developed in the same Apple department that developed Final Cut Pro and iMovie software, according to the people. Apple hired Joe Weil, the former president of a New York-based video production company, to lead the vision for the project, the people said. Weil, who co-developed a video blogging app called KnowMe, joined Apple in December 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile.

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