All about ReplayKit - 9 new iOS technology to record and sharinga games gameplay

Popularity Twitch and YouTube Gaming shows that gamers are very fond of games to record the stream, and people love to watch them. Together with iOS 9 Apple introduced a new framework ReplayKit, allowing game developers to add the possibility of gameplay recording with support for comments and card sharing. The first games with ReplayKit is already in the App Store, Apple and even contributed to them a section. We figured out how it works and whether attention is worth it.

When you start a game that supports ReplayKit, you will see the record button. This is not a standard element of the interface, so the corresponding icons will be different in different games. Depending on how well the developers have designed the interface, it can be both good and bad.

During the first recording users need to give permission for screen capture and audio. There are two options: "Only the screen record" and "screen and record audio from a microphone." In the latter case, you can record voice memos and even during games while at Twitch.

However, in contrast to the same Twitch and YouTube Gaming, players can not write the video from the device camera. This, apparently, for the future for the following iOS versions. Also, I must say that in your privacy settings such permits are not reflected. Generally.

To ensure smooth video capture, all notifications are disabled during recording. Upon completion, we are invited to save the video in iOS-device music library or share it. Also available are the basic editing functions, video can be cut if desired. Sharing works through the system menu "Share" and, therefore, supported Mail Address, "Messages", various instant messengers, YouTube.

The quality of ReplayKit in games is not very happy: some of them fly off after the restart permission to record, in others - when you press the record button nothing happens. More or less normally, we managed to test in ReplayKit Runner The Biking Dead. There's a video able to not only record, but also to cut, and then save it to your library "Photo".

Opening a saved video on a Mac, you can see what is written in the format of h.264 video in standard iOS-device resolution and 60 frames per second. The file name is automatically inserted the name of the game, and in the description indicates a reference to the App Store. As for compression, the 21-second test video took us 4.7 megabytes (recording on iPhone 5s) - therefore, no additional compression is not happening, ReplayKit captures exactly what's going on screen.

If you do not judge strictly Apple and developers, then, closing his eyes to the flaws, one can say that they did a good job. The company, albeit belatedly, implemented useful for gamers functionality, make life easier for developers who have implemented a record gameplay aspect of the mode.

ReplayKit - useful and necessary function, which will be particularly relevant in light of the announcement of the new Apple TV with support for gaming. Do you agree? Or do you have on this subject have a different opinion?