Apple shutting down 'Clips' video editing app

It's time to say goodbye to Apple's most confusing app.

Apple, in a support article this week, has announced that they are shuttering support for their mostly vertical video social media video editing app, Clips. Apple says that as of October 10th, the app will "no longer being updated, and will no longer be available for download for new users," ending support for an app that has not been updated in a long time.

If you already have the app downloaded, it will still work and you can still edit and take videos just as you did before. It will not, however, be available to download on devices without it installed already.

Launched in 2017, Clips offered a lot of new, fun features for video that were clearly targeted at social media with lots of stickers and other colorful and eye-catching things. It also had AR features and ways to implement them in your videos that felt more natural.

It is weird to me that they are discontinuing a product like this. There was no negativity surrounding the app, and there were certainly lots of people using it. It might not have been enough to justify the need to update it. However, Apple has just left apps sitting and never updated them, but still offered them on the app store, like their Texas Hold'em app from years ago.

It was pretty fun and easy to use, and offered much in the way of vertical video, something that can't always be said about iMovie on iPhone. Maybe they will port some of those nicer videos for vertical to iMovie to create one, more cohesive app. That would simplify things dramatically, but it would be odd to manage. Would it have the same AR and sticker features? If so, how would they be implemented? Would it be through the same interface as before?

There are a lot of questions that will probably go unanswered for the time being (or forever), but it is still sad to see Clips go. We will have to wait and see what Apple does soon.