Can this slow-mo app match the iPhone 5S?

There's something a little unsettling about looking at Epic's live view. It's like looking at the live view in any other camera or video app, but at a higher frame rate, bathing everything you see through it in an unnerving aura of hyperreality. This is probably how it feels to be Robocop.

The reason for the high frame rate is so that you can record clips with Epic, and then it'll then slow them down to create epic (see what they did there?) slow-motion clips that you can then post to all the usual places to amaze your friends, and all without having to buy a brand-new iPhone 5S with slo-mo functionality built in.

Recording your clips is much like recording a Vine; hold an on-screen button to record and let go to pause; you get about three seconds of recording per clip, which gets converted into a looping Vine-length slow motion clip.

So far, so epic! The only real downside is that the results aren't. We tried it on an iPhone 5 and the end results simply are neither particularly slow nor especially smooth at all, looking a bit like ordinary video being played back at half speed and making you very aware of the frame rate. We'd hate to use it on an iPhone 4. It might well be better on a 5S, but then the 5S is designed to shoot slow-motion video from the outset.

It's free, so you can give it a go and see if you have a bit more luck with it than we did, but we expect the most enjoyment you'll get out of Epic is from viewing the world through its hyperreal viewfinder. Which, we have to admit, is pretty epic in itself.

Key info

• Works with: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
• Price: Free
• Developer: Viddy
• Version: 1.0
• App size: 7.9 MB
• Age rating: 12+

Words: Jim McCauley

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