Vine Update Lets Users Edit Videos, Save Multiple Drafts

Vine, Twitter’s six-second looping video app, has just released an update to the app that brings two new big features to the video sharing platform: Sessions and Time Travel.

Time Travel essentially lets you edit videos, which has always been something Vine was very rigid about. In the past, you could never go back in time with Vine, but rather have to shoot continuously without a mistake. With Time Travel, users can remove, reorganize or replace any shot within at post at any time.

To use Time Travel, simply tap the green bar that shows you’r recording, or push edit when you’re previewing a post.

Meanwhile, Sessions let you maintain multiple drafts that are currently being edited and created at once, so you can switch from one project to the other.

The update is a big one, as users have never been able to edit Vine videos retroactively. Here’s what Vine has to say about the feature, according to the official blog post:

Vine was built for one purpose: to make it easy for people to capture life in motion and share it with the world. That is the reason we built the Vine camera, and it’s why we continue to improve upon and build new tools for your creations, nurturing the balance between power and simplicity that you’ve come to expect from us.

Vine’s last update was on July 3, and was presumably a counter attack against the just-launched Instagram Video feature. The earlier update redesigned the camera, added further navigation with categories, and let users “revine” videos from their stream. The July update also let users see a hovering, transparent preview of their last shot to line up stop-animation videos better, as well as the ability to focus, and see the video in grid view.

This update, though not following a major release from Instagram, also seems to compete with Facebook’s photo-sharing phenom. You still can’t upload video into Vine, which Instagram allows, but the ability to edit clips (as you can in Instagram) seems like a me-too move from Vine, which has always been stingy about letting users edit.

Still, Vine certainly isn’t threatened by Instagram Video. The apps are very different, and Instagram users loved Instagram for being a photo-sharing platform, but there isn’t proof that the introduction of video grew that love. Meanwhile, Viners have always enjoyed making short films. All 13 million of them.*

The update is available on both iOS and Android.

*And that’s as of June, before Android launched.