iMovie and the iPad 2

After doing my walk around last week and gathering some video clips with my new iPad 2, I was anxious to edit those clips into a 4 or 5 minute video to post to our YouTube channel. The plan was to put those clips together using iMovie on the iPad 2. I was quickly disappointed.

Putting the clips in and adjusting their length and position is easy enough. After that, the disappointment started. When trying to add captions, one can only do so based on the chosen theme for the project. There are only eight themes to choose from, and those aren't the best. If the caption is too long for the particular theme chosen, instead of multi-lining the caption the software just cuts it off. There is also no way to adjust the length the caption shows on the screen. It is stuck to the length of the clip it is applied to. So, to adjust it's length, one has to split the clip. This is not a huge deal, but still a limitation. The simple lack of choices for captions is a big negative in my opinion.

The lack of choice doesn't stop there. The transitions to choose from are also extremely limited. There are three: none, cross dissolve, and theme based. I am guessing this is due to the lack of processing power to render these on the fly.

The lack of processing power also rears it's ugly head when doing just the simplest things like clicking the project settings button. When making a change in those settings and trying to click out, there is a very noticeable delay as the project is updated to match those changes. So, be sure to close any other open apps before attempting any iMovie editing.

Something else I found to be missing was backgrounds. I like to do credits or additional comments in and at the end of videos. So the lack of backgrounds and caption choices is very limiting in this regard. I got around it in this video by covering the camera and recording a black clip to put a caption on.

I am reviewing this device as a possible alternative for a 1:1 learning environment. If the goal is to show learning through video, I would suggest buying a netbook and using Movie Maker. After using the real iMovie, the iPad version left me extremely disappointed. That being said, if the goal is to make very simple videos, very quickly, with little attention to detail, the iPad 2 and iMovie for the iPad will do just fine.

Apple has had a long and positive relationship with education. Wouldn't it be nice if they would ask people IN education what they really need in a 1:1 device and then deliver it, instead of those in education trying to make existing products work for their purposes?

You can see the video I made here.