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Home / Reviews / Apps and Games / iPhone & iPad / App of the week: ClippyCam review

App of the week: ClippyCam review

When selfies aren’t enough, slap videos of your gurning mug over every snap you take

These days, it’s seemingly mandatory to document your every move. It would be downright irresponsible to visit a beautiful landmark, say, without snapping the thing 17 times and sending the results to your friends.

The snag is, if you use the selfie cam to insert your mug into the picture, you might obscure the landmark. The image quality will be rubbish, too. ClippyCam heroically gets around such problems, by making use of both of your iPhone’s cameras almost simultaneously.

You spin me right round

You spin me right round

I say “almost” because although ClippyCam combines photos taken using both iPhone cameras, it doesn’t shoot both at once. Instead, you take a photo in the normal way, and the app then switches to the FaceTime camera.

You can then pull a daft expression and take another pic, which is overlaid on the first. If you’re feeling a bit David Attenborough, you can hold the shutter to overlay a short video instead, adding riveting commentary or yelling “IT’S ME!” over and over until the timer runs out.

The end result – be it photo or video – by default resembles a stripped-back videochat session. And despite the novelty factor, you might bin this freebie at that point. But don’t, because ClippyCam offers features to aid creativity and – I kid not – enable both oddball selfies and serious photography. At the same time.

Perfect shot

Perfect shot

Options for the overlaid shot include adjusting its position, border and shape. Annoyingly, this must be done before you shoot the second image or video – not afterwards. More usefully, ClippyCam saves your full-res image alongside what you concoct in the app itself. So when you upload that masterpiece of you gurning over the top of an amazing shot of the Vatnajökull glacier, said amazing shot will exist in vanilla form in Photos.

Also, you can import existing images, too, as a starting point. Fancy adding a video selfie to a moody still from Game of Thrones? Go for it. Just don’t come crying to Stuff when White Walkers unfriend you on Facebook.

So ClippyCam runs the full gamut from gimmick to useful, and it’s free if you can stomach watermarks on the combination shots – or a reasonable three quid if you can’t. Just avoid snapping food you’re eating and then overlaying a video of you eating it. No-one needs to see that.

ClippyCam is available for iOS

Stuff Says…

Score: 4/5

A gimmicky photo/video combiner that also has enough creative clout to deserve a spot on your iPhone

Good Stuff

Works with camera and imported images

Plenty of sharing options

Saves your original snap (watermark-free)

Bad Stuff

Camera is really basic

Could use some post-shoot editing

Profile image of Craig Grannell Craig Grannell Contributor

About

I’m a regular contributor to Stuff magazine and Stuff.tv, covering apps, games, Apple kit, Android, Lego, retro gaming and other interesting oddities. I also pen opinion pieces when the editor lets me, getting all serious about accessibility and predicting when sentient AI smart cookware will take over the world, in a terrifying mix of Bake Off and Terminator.

Areas of expertise

Mobile apps and games, Macs, iOS and tvOS devices, Android, retro games, crowdfunding, design, how to fight off an enraged smart saucepan with a massive stick.