Turn your iOS burst photos into videos, animated GIFs

Turn your iOS burst photos into videos, animated GIFs

If you find yourself taking a lot of burst photos on your iOS device, Burstio is an app you're sure to find useful.

Burstio app iconJason Cipriani/CNET

My favorite kind of apps aren't entire platforms or services. Instead, they're much simpler apps that fill a hole in the feature set of an operating system. For example, Apple created a Burst Mode in its Camera app that takes photos in quick succession as long as you hold in the shutter button.

Once your burst is captured, Apple uses software to pick what it feels is the best shot out of the group and displays it for easy sharing. It's a feature I use often, but it's also one I've always felt was incomplete.

For me, it only made sense for Apple to provide a quick mechanism to turn a series of burst photos into an animated GIF, or a silent video (audio isn't captured when you're taking photos, naturally).

That's where Burstio comes in. This small app scans your Camera Roll for burst photo sets, and then allows you to export them as a video or GIF with just a few taps.

Burstio for iOS.Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

After installing the app, you only need to grant it permission to access your Photos. Once you've done that, you'll be presented with a list of the burst sets stored on your device. Tap on one, preview and trim the clip, then export it as an HD video or an animated GIF.

Additionally, you can adjust the playback speed or opt to have it replay on a loop.

Here's a GIF I created from a wedding I recently attended:

Who doesn't want to dance with a few dozen glowsticks?Jason Cipriani/CNET

Due to lighting and movement, the photos turned out pretty poor. I had planned on exporting all of the photos in the particular set and creating a GIF, but hadn't gotten around to it yet.