If like me, you’ve got a new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, you may get yourself in a situation where the ports just aren’t enough.
With the MacBook Pro, the ports you have access to are:
4 x USB C / Thunderbolt
1 x 3.5mm Headphone Jack
This is all perfect, until you need to plug in an external display, or have an old USB A drive you want to use. For sure, there are adapters everywhere, and you can literally find any combination of dongles.
The problem arises when you have adapters that break over time, or when using multiple adapters, they tend to get lost.
Well, a while ago I backed something on Kickstarter called HyperDrive. It’s an adapter that is more of an extension, as it just slots on to the side of the Mac, and turns 2 USB C ports into a lot more.
I was going to make a video for this when I first received it, but that just never happened. But ever since Apple released Clips for iOS, I’ve been making small videos.
So I’ve created one for this. I won’t share here what the actual details of the HyperDrive is here, because I don’t want to spoil the video!
You can’t get a HyperDrive from Kickstarter anymore, but they are now running an IndieGoGO campaign where you can find them.
Apple released Clips yesterday, which is their new app for creating fun videos, with various filters, music, and more. I covered this app before, but as I hadn’t played around with the app at that point, it was literally just explaining the features.
But now I’ve had over a day with the app, and I must say I’m really loving it. It’s even earned it’s place on my Home screen!
The design of the app itself is quite nice, but I’m not sure I feel the same way about the icon. And it just feels easy to use, which I guess is the main focus.
I didn’t think I’d say this, but I also like the filters! The comic book one is by far my favourite, everything looks good in it!
There’s a lot of talk about the usage of private APIs, and how the app itself doesn’t ask for permission to use things like the camera or microphone, but seeing as this is an Apple app, I’m not too worried.
Another thing I like about Clips, is the exporting options. I had wondered how Apple would select social networks that would be included, but using a (completely custom) share sheet, is a good way to avoid any issues. Because this means any app can enable support for Clips, by adding video importing. One option I’m very thankful of, is YouTube, because it’s really fast (and super easy) to upload a Clip, and have it available near instantly.
I had some interesting mail today, and this gave me the opportunity to make use of Clips title features and music. Which I think turned out pretty well!
Finally, there’s something else I must say about Clips, and the type of app/service it could be enabling. And although the app is purely a way to capture, and edit videos, I think the content that people will create in Clips could change the way people watch videos.
We all know the issues with YouTube, there’s advertisement problems, the creators seem to always be annoyed about something, and it generally lacks competition. But one thing we can take from YouTube, is that people love Vlogs. Which are essentially a video version of a blog post, it’s a visual way to understand someone else’s life.
Blogs used to be huge, and while I still really enjoy writing my own, and reading other’s blog posts. But since then, microblogging services have taken over, with Twitter being the main service.
What I’m thinking is, if Twitter took blogging and made it micro, so then more people could take part, and share more content, more often. What if Clips could make vlogging micro? It would need another service of course, but it could just make use of whatever social network they’re on. I personally think that this app, along with competing apps that will no doubt turn up soon, will be the catalyst for upgrading the type of content that is shared.
