iMovie has lost the plot. Apple needs a true social video editing app for TikTok and Reels
Why doesn't Apple have a good way to edit mobile videos on its phones in 2026?
Apple seems to be in a predicament with its creative and productivity software at the moment. On one hand, its new bundle of professional-level software is an excellent deal for people who use Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. The Creator Studio bundle at $13 per month or $130 per year offers plenty of value for the advanced software.
On the other hand, Apple’s entry-level apps have never been in a worse spot. The iWork suite of apps, like Pages and Numbers, was once completely free and is now freemium. In other words, you can access some stuff for free, but for new templates and other AI features, you need a Creator Studio subscription. And then there’s iMovie. The video editing app that appears on all iPads and iPhones, tempting people to try their hand at editing their videos, but it’s an utter relic in the world of social video feeds like TikTok and Instagram Reels. Apple needs a new video editing strategy for the mass market.
The new social video editing app that Apple needs
If you want to create a video for TikTok or Instagram Reels today, your best bet is to just use those apps to do everything. When I open iMovie on my iPhone 17 Pro and import vertical videos I shot with that same iPhone 17 Pro, the app automatically crops them to be landscape, with seemingly no way to change that. That should be a non-starter for a lot of people. Even if you’re not a creator, professionally making content, you should be able to manipulate vertical videos without thinking too hard about it.
Maybe the company can repurpose iMovie, or maybe it needs to revive Clips, but either way, I still think Apple needs a modern editing app. It makes world-class video shooting hardware. And has a lot of advanced software features for editing.
I think people really could use another editing app like CapCut and Edits that isn’t owned by TikTok or Meta.
An Apple video editing app wish list
It’s not worth going into too much detail about what a video editing app from Apple would look like. Trends, filters, and needs change rapidly. But it is worth highlighting what kinds of things an app would need.
- Broad access to popular music - There needs to be a freely available catalog of licensed music that people can choose from. Maybe Apple Music subscribers get extra benefits, but anyone editing videos on an Apple device needs to be able to search for a song and use 60 to 90 seconds for their videos. A good sync placement of a song will do wonders for everyone involved—artists, Apple, and users.
- Portrait design - Maybe you ultimately want to turn a phone sideways and work in landscape, but when you open an iPhone app, it needs to work in portrait orientation, for all buttons and controls.
- The app needs to be connected - There are no specific filters, transitions, or effects a video editor needs to have, but rather, it needs to be connected to the social trends, so that it has the latest features. The app can’t survive on being updated once or twice a year. It needs to have a pipeline to keep new effects and items flowing into the app to make it feel like it has its hand on the pulse.
Why is iMovie front and center for new iPhone and iPad buyers?
What’s most confusing about Apple’s consumer creative apps, like iMovie and GarageBand, is that the company continues to promote them so heavily by installing them on every iPad and iPhone. From that standpoint, it looks like Apple is behind these apps fully. But in practice, it feels like it hasn’t considered them in years.
Even more perplexing for a video editing app is that Apple had Clips. It debuted the portrait-oriented mobile app in 2017 and occasionally updated it. But it just discontinued it and removed it from the App Store in late 2025.
Now, if Apple really doesn’t care about this category, then that was the right move to get rid of it. Clips was sorely lacking for modern times. But why doesn’t Apple care about enabling iPhone users to be creative with their latest and greatest phones? That part is a mystery to me. Other mobile video-editing apps can fill the space, but I’m kind of tired of CapCut trying to nickel and dime every feature behind an in-app purchases.