Splice, Replay Acquired By GoPro

If you own a GoPro, you're sure to know how easy shooting with it is, water drips on the lens aside, and how frustrating the editing can be.

The company's usual kicker was the simplicity of shooting with an easy-to-use, waterproof yet not rugged (also known as ugly) camera.

Too bad they didn't think about photo/video management experience, as the GoPro app's interface was - and still is - notoriously difficult to get a grasp of, especially if you shoot lots of shorter videos. The recent move to deny copying, deleting and erasing to PC owners so they would use the apps and camera itself could hardly be called a success.

There's a grain of optimism though as the company, desperate to get out of the downward spiral, announced the takeover of two popular iOS video editing apps, namely Splice and Replay.

Nicholas Woodman, the founder and CEO of GoPro had this to say: “Splice, Replay and GoPro will combine to deliver what we believe will be the fastest and most enjoyable mobile editing experience”.

Splice is a popular mobile video editing app that packs a lot of usual video management features in a minimalistic bundle.

Replay, on the contrary, is more of an on-the-go editing app that serves as a basic editor where one can combine cut, mix, add transitions, effects, photos and music to share stuff online quickly.

While both apps are about to be merged into GoPro's mothership app, for some time they will remain available for iOS users, with a promised Android release.

GoPro's determination to improve its editing software is a welcomed one, as the whole experience is frustrating. While it's not the only factor that has contributed to the company's 30 percent plunge in 2015, improved editing may tilt the users back into favor.

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Ryan Kerr

@freepps

Tech junkie, grilled haloumi devourer, cat owner @freepps_top