A new app from Brooklyn-based This Also isn’t designed to help you take better videos — it’s designed to make videos a little more fun with something as simple as zoom.
OOO uses Force Touch or a slider to zoom in and out, adding in some original soundtracks to create whimsical music videos. The app allows users to zoom in a little or a lot and at varying speeds. With Force Touch, the harder you press, the faster the zoom, though earlier iOS devices can still use the apps with a slider or by presetting the zoom speed and reach.
While the app is meant to turn the smartphone camera into a toy, creators Brett Bergeron and and Brian Baker say there’s a few high-end features hidden inside. The app uses stabilization — and can tell if you’re wearing headphones and adjust the audio automatically.
The app is a sort of one-trick pony, designed to take fun zoom videos and only fun zoom videos. But the app’s developers say future enhancements could allow the zoom to be controlled by the audio level in the scene.
OOO, meant to play with the long “oo” sound in zoom, much like the app plays with actual zoom, is the first full self-funded project from This Also, though the group has also worked on projects for Google, Xbox, Spotify and start-ups. All of the available tracks were created in-house by the team.
OOO is designed as more of a camera toy than a high-quality video app — except for the iPhone 7 Plus, iPhones only have digital zoom, so as the zoom moves in, you’ll see the quality decrease. The app also includes controls for muting or leaving the audio intact, as well as reversing the video and adding stabilization.
OOO is available for free on the App Store for devices running iOS 10.0 or later.
