Vine

How to block strangers from messaging you on Vine

Some of our past tutorials have provided step-by-step instructions for saving Vine videos, hiding other people's revines in your feed, deleting Vine accounts and blocking users. This how-to mini-series continues with the topic of preventing people you don't follow from messaging you on the service.

Since Vine's 2.0 update, the app has gained the ability to send instant messages to other Vine members. This has quickly generated an influx of unwanted messages that in many cases is classed as pure spam.

This tutorial will teach you about a toggle you can switch to tell Vine to block strangers from messaging you on the service.

How to block users on Vine, report abuse and flag sensitive content

If you're a Vine fan, chances are you have, or will encounter unwanted comments on the videos you post to the service. This can be especially worrisome if your vines are set to public, as anyone can read NSFW language in comments.

Of course, you can delete comments posted through Vine's iPhone app at any time. But if someone is repeatedly showing abusive behavior toward your followers and spamming you in comments, you should block them.

Though this won't block the user from commenting on your posts when they're viewed through searches or hash tags, it will prevent them from following or messaging you on Vine. In this post, you are going to learn how to block a user on Vine, report abusive behavior and flag sensitive media.

How to hide revines from users you follow

If you use Vine, sooner than later your feed will become polluted with reposts (revines, in Vine talk) from those you follow on the service. Besides, it's really annoying having to scroll through a hundred or more revines from a user before getting to one of their own clips.

Thankfully, reducing information overload on Vine isn't as hard as it sounds as the app lets you block revines from a person and show only their original posts.

In this tutorial, we'll teach you how to hide revines from anyone you follow on the service with just a few taps. This should help make your Vine experience a little more focused and less cluttered.

How to save Vine videos

Who knew 6-second-long looping video clips would turn out to be so much fun? If you're into short-form entertainment, there's probably no better place to get your daily fix of user-posted clips, some of which are quite interesting—I've seen whole how-tos compressed into six seconds—than Vine.

The problem is, both Vine the website and mobile app prohibit you from saving your favorite clips to your computer or mobile device. Thankfully, there are apps for that, too.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to save Vine videos to your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or Mac using a nifty little utility and a free of charge web app.

Vine rolls out Apple Watch app and new ways to discover and watch videos

Twitter-owned Vine, a short-form video sharing service, is now available on the Apple Watch with a native watchOS 2 app that streams best videos from Featured and Favorites sections to your wrist.

A Vine complication is available as well so you can track your account's loops and access the native app from your watch face. In addition to the Apple Watch app, this edition of Vine includes features that make it easier to make and discover audio remixes on the service and more.

Vine update makes it super easy to remix your favorite videos

Vine on Wednesday announced a new update for its popular mobile video-sharing app. It appears that this is a backend update, as I didn't have to download anything to see the changes (although I did restart the app), but there are a few new features worth noting.

The first is a new audio remix option. With Remix, users can make their own creations with sound from any Vine with the touch of a finger. Just tap the [...] button beneath a Vine clip within the mobile app, and select "Make an audio remix" from the popup menu.

Vine app updated with hearts and new ‘Similar Vines’ feature

Twitter on Friday pushed out an update for its popular video-sharing Vine app, bringing the iPhone client to version 4.3. The update is a minor one, as the release notes only mention a few changes, but there are two new features worth mentioning.

The first is the addition of Hearts, which bring the app more in line with Twitter's other products. Like the social network did earlier this week, Vine has replaced its 'Favorites' (the smiley face) feature with a new, more meaningful heart-shaped icon.

Latest Vine update brings Snap to Beat feature and new audio discovery tools

Twitter-owned Vine has rolled out two major new features to its mobile app which are aimed at improving audio discovery and help “bring the magic of perfect-looping music to everyone.”

For starters, a brand new Snap to Beat feature lets you create Vines with With seamless audio looping. And in an effort to make music a core part of Vine, users can now take advantage of enhancements like a new Featured Tracks section and another new feature that allows them to find out what they're listening to as they watch Vines.

Vine updated with new HD upload setting and improved discovery

Twitter updated its 6-second video sharing app Vine today, bringing the iOS client to version 3.4.2. The update brings about two major improvements: suggestions for popular Viners to follow, and a new quality setting that lets you post your Vines in HD.

The former should help Vine with its discovery problem, something its parent company Twitter particularly struggles with. It's nearly impossible to convince new users to stick around when it's difficult to quickly find interesting and entertaining content.

Twitter for iOS and twitter.com to start autoplaying videos today—here’s how to turn it off

You could say I'm not a big fan of intrusive autoplay videos in apps, not to mention those pesky autoplay video ads on some websites. With that in mind, I was taken aback when Twitter announced today adding this very feature to its iPhone and iPad application and the web interface.

Now when you stumble upon a tweet with an embedded Vine, animated GIF or a clip in Twitter's native format, it will begin to play back automatically.

It's all part of the grand plan to shove advertising down our throat though Twitter would have us believe it's trying to make our lives easier so we could “keep up with the action without missing a tweet and get a better sense of what’s been shared instantly.”

Because autoplay videos suck your cellular data, this feature is a major concern in this age of non-unlimited plans. True, Twitter promises to opt out of autoplay anyone who's on a high-rate data plan, but I'd rather trust my instincts and revert back to the old-school click-to-play experience.

Thankfully, there's an easy way to do just that.

Vine upgrades video quality to 720p

Vine, a service for sharing short 15-second looping clips, announced on Friday that it is finally upgrading video quality from a rather paltry 480p resolution to a more acceptable 720p.

“We’ve been working on technical upgrades that support Vines in higher quality,” the Twitter-owned company said. The 720p format offers a resolution of 1,280-by-720 pixels whereas the 480p standard tops out at 640-by-480 pixels.