Apple shuts down the Clips app

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Apple has quietly hit the “end credits” on Clips, the quirky little video-editing app it launched back in 2017. 

In a move that feels less like a dramatic finale and more like a slow fade-out, the company confirmed that as of October 10, Clips has officially been pulled from the App Store. 

If you didn’t already have it, you’re out of luck.

According to Apple’s support page, existing users can still use Clips on current or older versions of iOS and iPadOS, and even re-download it from their purchase history. 

But that’s where the good news stops. The company won’t be updating it anymore, meaning Clips will likely start to feel its age over time, like an iPhone 6 trying to run iOS 18. 

Apple gently suggests users save their videos to their photo library “for safekeeping,” which sounds suspiciously like “we’re done here.”

For those who missed its brief moment in the spotlight, Clips was Apple’s cheerful attempt to tap into the Snapchat and Instagram Stories craze. 

It lets users mash together photos and videos, slap on emojis, filters, and even catchy background music, all without ever logging into a social network. 

TechCrunch described it as “simple to a fault,” a phrase that feels even more accurate in hindsight.

Over the years, Apple tossed Clips a few updates, new filters here, some Animoji support there, but in recent times, it’s mostly been bug fixes and silence. 

MacRumors noted that updates have been few and far between, hinting that the writing’s been on the wall for a while.

Meanwhile, Apple fans on Reddit collectively shrugged. Some hadn’t heard of the app at all; others tried it once back in 2018 and promptly forgot it existed. 

And in today’s AI-obsessed world, where tools like OpenAI’s Sora can generate entire videos without touching a camera, a manually edited app like Clips feels quaint.