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Regardless of how you hold your phone, this app will automatically record videos in landscape orientation. Be gone, vertical video.
While it may be the most comfortable way to hold your phone, shooting video in portrait orientation makes for some pretty unattractive footage.
If you try and integrate this footage into an editing program or even just upload it to YouTube, expect to see big black borders because your computer screen is generally horizontal — not vertical. Here’s a cute video that explains the perils of what’s been called Vertical Video Syndrome.
Fortunately, there is now an app to fix all that. It’s called Horizon, and works by using your smartphone’s gyroscope to automatically keep your videos horizontal, no matter how you hold the handset. It even works if you hold the phone at an angle, maintaining your chosen aspect ratio (1:1, 16:9 or 4:3). For filter aficionados there are eight presets to choose from.
Horizon is iOS only at the moment and is available to download for an introductory price of AU$0.99 from the App Store. Now all we need is for manufacturers to start making this the default way to record video to banish those black borders forever.
