Open Radar

 
Summary:

ReplayKit looks to be a very useful tool for game developers (and developers generlly) to record app content on behalf of users.

However, it seems to be very limited in how it can be used for what is - for many developers - its most compelling purpose: App promotion and awareness.

It would make ReplayKit much more useful if developers could prepend/append content to the beginning or end of a recorded video. This could be either a short video segment of some sort, or (if that isn't an option) a UIImage or UIView content. This would ideally be crossfaded in/out as appropriate when transitioning to/from the video.

I do not believe this would present an undue privacy risk for users as they would be able to preview the video - including the added part - as normal.

Why would developers want this?

• Branding. Without the ability to customize tweet/share text, a user could share video from an app and easily neglect to tell people what its name is or how to get it. My app does not overburden the main UI with branding so it would be nice to at least display the app name at the end of the video.

• To display content - high scores or leaderboard results, for example - in a way more appropriate for a video context and without a lot of inappropriate UI chrome.

• To "set the scene" by explaining what the following or preceding footage is from. For example, the video could display which level is to be shown in the footage to follow.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Review ReplayKit documentation and headers - they do not include this functionality.

Expected Results:

1. API exists to prepend/append either a video or a UIImage or UIView to be rendered at the start or end of a recorded video, with an optional crossfade.

Actual Results:

1. Sadness due to lack of available API and no programmatic access to video.