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Something Steve Jobs chose to highlight (besides Winnie the Pooh) during his iPhone 4 announcement was the ability to use iMovie on the iPhone. For someone with a computer that is more like WALL-E than EVE,  this was exciting news. After buying it in the iTunes store for $4.99, I decided to try it out while babysitting for some friends. I took some pictures and video while the kids were up, and when they went to bed I was able to edit the whole video on my iPhone and show their parents by the time they got home.

Here are the highlights…

Cool features:

·        Editing on the go

·        Themes with custom transitions and music that make editing easier

·        Upload directly to YouTube

·        Choose one of the theme songs, or add a song from your iTunes library

Few small issues:

·        If you upload to YouTube directly, there is a loss in quality—better to upload from your computer

·        Only one song can be used, and can’t be looped

·        There is only so much room on your phone for HD video (should have bought the 32GB!)

·        Only five themes are available

The look on the faces of my friends when they came home made it all worth it. Since then, I’ve made videos of friends’ weddings and of an interview of my grandpa telling his life story (his mom used to keep a window unlocked for him when he was out partying with friends).

Without further ado, my adventures with Max and Andy (before you ask, yes, I was too busy filming the kids to wipe their noses):

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With the release of “Apple of my Eye”, the first short film shot and edited using the iPhone 4, I started to envision the future of mobile journalism and how iMovie could potentially transform the way we consume news media. Michael Korbel’s short film showcases the iPhone 4’s capability to capture raw emotion and visualize complex storylines while using a minimal amount of equipment. Be honest- In the right setting, “Apple of my Eye” might make you tear up, just a little.

So what does this mean for future iReport contributors? Well, quite a bit. Recording HD video at 720 p resolution/30 frames per second could produce award-winning documentaries capable of immediate web submission. Can you imagine the effect this would have had on the Iranian Twitter Revolution? Unedited video uploads went viral overnight, drawing international coverage and raising awareness of the turmoil surrounding the distressed country.

In the United States, we’ve seen growing popularity in Facebook and YouTube video uploads reporting police brutality. This has caused government officials to question altercations caught on tape, making the video camera one of the “most effective weapon(s) that ordinary people have to protect against and to expose police abuse.”

Recently, YouTube launched CitizenTube, a feed that tracks breaking news video uploads with a “focus on strong visuals and non-traditional sources.” Allvoices, a newly launched citizen journalism platform, has seen record growth internationally, with 6.5 million unique visitors in the month of May. Though iPhone-to-web direct uploads are not yet available, these signs show that journalism is shifting focus toward user-generated content, where importance lies in the citizen’s point of view.

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I just read a great re-cap post on “super brand’s” use of Augmented Reality from Chris Lake on Econsultancy and it got me thinking.  Specifically about AR & QR codes.  I call both technologies enabling technologies because they both enable the offline to be merged with the online.  And they both enable deeper experiences with the brand.  But QR codes – really any barcodes – just don’t seem to have the attraction, nor the experimentation to scale and use that AR has.  Why do you think this is?

Aside from the end-visual difference between the two, I think it’s simple – QR codes don’t do for a brand what AR does.  In other words – QR codes are just another way to access information.  AR is another way to experience a brand.  It’s quite a big difference.

At the end of the day, do we really need QR codes?  We can duplicate the same experience through advertising a URL or a short code.  Some would even argue that accessing a deeper level of information through a URL/short code is a better experience than through a QR code.  You don’t have  to understand what it is, how it works, download an app, take a picture.  Just simply type or text for the information you want.

AR, on the other hand, is an experience unto itself.  You can’t duplicate the experience any other way.  And because AR is what it is, it allows brands to either create an experience or utility that can show things in ways that no other medium can.  And that’s one of the fascinating things to me about AR – it transcends the mediums/screens we use to consume media.  It lives, literally, somewhere between your hands in the real world and your eyes on whatever screen you experience it on.  It can immerse someone in a brand far more effectively than any barcode can.  And depending on the actual solution, it can probably immerse someone more than a TV commercial can, or a website, or a banner ad, or a “static” video.

QR codes & AR both have hurdles for sure.  Start with the technology needed and the effort required to access either of them.  But because of what each provides, do you think one will outlive the other?  Or do you think that they’re both here to stay?

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