Edits by Instagram

Instagram (not Meta) released a new app called Edits to compete with CapCut, from TikTok, and other short form video editor apps.

It looks and functions very much like the video editor you'd find inside of TikTok, with options to overlay images, text, captions, stickers, and more. It creates captions which you can embed in the video, and then of course you can share right to Instagram as a reel or Facebook. The video also gets added to the camera roll on your phone to share elsewhere, but no other share destinations are currently built into the app.

Edits seems like a great effort from Meta / Instagram to offer an alternative to TikTok, especially if Trump ever actually gets around to blocking TikTok again in the United States.

It seems interesting that video editing on your phone is the new battleground for so many social apps. Apple, which has had iMovie and Clips available for a long time, never really updated the apps to be something that could be universally used by vertical social sites. You would think that Apple could figure out a way to bundle licensing for all the music the same way TikTok or Instagram has done, especially since they're already licensing music for Apple Music. Clips could've been a great place to make video edits for Reels or TikTok.