On Sunday, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri visited Threads with another announcement that is certainly not related to the fact that TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps will disappear for a while: a new free video editing app called Edits is on its way. Instagram’s Edits will be aimed at people who edit videos on their phones and will offer a “full suite of creative tools.” This includes high-quality recordings, drafts to share, trending audio, information about the performance of your videos, and an “inspiration tab,” in addition to the usual editing tools.
If all this reminds you of CapCut, TikTok’s sister video editing app, you’re not alone. In response to the instant comparisons, Mosseri called Edits “CapCut, but more for creators than regular video makers.”
Edits isn’t available yet, but you can pre-order it on the App Store if you’re an iOS user, and Mosseri says an Android version is “coming soon.” Although he says the release will take place sometime in February, the App Store page says March 13. And don’t expect anything too polished when it arrives. “The first version will be incomplete, so please be patient, but I’m very excited to put it in your hands,” Mosseri said.
The statement comes shortly after TikTok announced that its app was coming back online in the US, just 12 hours after it was shut down. CapCut is yet to return, but is expected to follow suit. Trump stated on social media that after being sworn in, he would announce an executive order that would extend the time given to ByteDance to decide the future of TikTok.
While users on the threads demanded that Instagram postpone the announcement, Mosseri said that the app has been in development for several months, “and I think it will end up being completely different than CapCut.” On that note, he said: “Edits will have a much wider range of creative tools and probably a smaller target audience. Think about a place to keep track of all your ideas instead of templates. Think about AI video editing tools for each clip or video. Think about new insights into why your videos succeed or fail.”
One sign that Edits may have an edge over CapCut is that the App Store page states that videos will not be watermarked when exported. While the free version of CapCut has long added an ending logo to videos that can be easily removed during export, it recently started adding corner watermarks as well.
