Vine – Make a Scene iOS App Review

My goodness, this app came out of nowhere! Recently acquired by Twitter, Vine – Make a Scene app for iOS, was everywhere yesterday! My Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts were lit up with people sharing their new account information.

So what is this new application called Vine? Vine is an app for creating short six second video clips that play over and over again in a loop. Vine allows you to post an unlimited number of videos, and you can easily share them on your Facebook and Twitter accounts. It’s easy to find and follow friends, and just like Instagram the app allows for easy scroll down viewing. Vine also relies heavily on hashtags, and trending videos are viewable through several in-app categories.

So is this brand new app worth trying out?

Here’s some of my favorite features:

Easy to use interface, and finding friends is a breeze.

Account set up is easy, especially if you have a Twitter account.

Who doesn’t love a popular app that is free?

This app has some serious creativity potential! With just a few tweaks (see below) this app could really go places.

And features that need some serious tweaking:

Video’s can only be captured vertically. Want to share a beautiful panoramic horizontal sunset? Not gonna happen.

Since you tap the screen to film, there is no way to adjust the focus. Shooting up close is going to result in a blurry mess.

Vine is kind of a creativity killer. Sure, the ability to tap the screen and create a stop motion type film is fun, but no filters, cropping, or manual focusing is allowed. You cannot even edit sound or add music.

Though the look and feel are very similar to Instagram, upload time is going to obviously take a little longer since you are viewing video clips and not photographs. The app was very sluggish when I did not have a strong cell signal.

At this time you cannot upload videos already saved in your Photo Album. Major fail! This is a deal breaker for me. It’s like using Instagram to capture actual photos, and then using an Instagram filter (enter major sarcasm) to process them. Um, no one does that.

I did not see a way to retweet or share favorite videos within the app. This would be an added bonus for adorable clips you want to share with friends.

You cannot reverse your camera to shoot in backward-facing mode. Sorry, no glamorous self portraits here.

No Android or Windows version yet. Yet being the key word.

One. More. Social. Network. To. Join. Need I say more?

One last side note, Vine is currently NOT FOR KIDS. Users are already complaining of heavy profanity and nudity. If you decide to view trending posts and popular hashtags, you have been warned.

Have you given Vine a try yet? If you want to view a sample video, be sure to find my username Natalme, and feel free to leave your Vine username in the comments so I can look you up!