GIFVid, A Neat Animation App For iPhone [Review]

By

20110131-gifvid-icon.jpg

Back in the web’s Dark Ages, before anyone even dreamed of creating a logo for a markup language, and when messing around with default link colors was adventurous web design, the closest thing anyone had to online video was the animated GIF.

It was just a small series of still image files glued together, but when played in sequence they looked like movement. A million “UNDER CONSTRUCTION” animated signs bloomed across the early web.

Since then, the animated GIF has gone out of fashion. You don’t see them so much. But you might see more soon, and enjoy making your own, thanks to a new photo toy for iPhone called GIFvid.

This two-dollar app grabs a series of stills (by default, over a 5 second time period) and automagically converts them into a tiny animation. Like this:

Gifvid demo

The app has been beautifully made, with some thoughtful features. For example, you might wish to edit out one or two frames from your series. In preview mode, just tap on the individual frames you want to skip, and they’ll flip themselves over. They’ve not been deleted, so you can restore them if you wish.

It’s also possible to adjust the speed of the animation playback, and to change the direction of animation: forwards, backwards, or both.

After playing around to get the effect you want, it’s easy to export to an email message or directly to the web via image sharing service Imgur. For more examples, browse the GIFvid Tumblr.

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.