GIFs have never been more popular than they are today. It feels like we’ve been seeing them for centuries already: since the old days of Geocities and the different “under construction” GIFs to meme classics like the legendary ytmnd. Their recent arrival to WhatsApp has consecrated the GIF as the current mass communication trope par excellence. So much so that even Google has added a GIF key to the latest update to its popular keyboard. We’ve talked before about how to create GIFs with YouTube and now we present the best Android apps for creating animated GIFs.
PicsArt Animator
This powerful tool lets you create cyclical animations from scratch or start with one of your own images. Whether you’ve got no experience with drawing whatsoever or you’re a proper Matisse, this app has features for users of all levels and offers an intuitive GUI that should make things super easy for you. It stands out for its enormous and customizable color palette and its system of layers for animating, which anybody who’s familiar with Photoshop, etc., is sure to appreciate. Plus PicsArt Animator has simple options for exporting your GIFs to social networks, which is super useful if you want to display your animations fast. [Download]
GIF Maker
People who’ve cried over the loss of Vine – and I’m one of them – are sure to find lots of similarities between it and GIF Maker, an app that uses your smartphone camera to create fast and simple animations. Just pick your images and set the time between frames and presto! When it comes to recording, you can use either of two cameras and set the number of pics taken in a burst as well as the time between them. Plus you can also use images saved on your device as well as anything recorded with your smartphone camera. An efficient solution if you want to use your own surroundings when creating a GIF. [Download]
Pixel Animator
Pixel art lovers have a real treasure here: Pixel Animator lets you create and animate sprites. There’s a nice toolbox for this task and a broad range of colors to create images in all the detail you want. You’ll need a bit of patience to squeeze out every drop of its potential but people passionate about GIFing will love this helpful app that can be used from anywhere. Still, the free version is a bit limited as it only allows up to 15 frames per GIF and limited use of some of its features. [Download]
[…] Besides this GIFy gift, Facebook has released a set of usage statistics for GIFs on Facebook Messenger that are quite surprising. For instance, in 2016 nearly 25,000 GIFs were sent per minute and the day that saw the most animated images sent was New Year’s Eve 2016, at 400 million GIFs. These stunning figures speak well of the status of these kinds of images. And now Facebook can start collecting its own GIF usage figures for both its website and its Android app. And if for some reason you get bored of the GIFs now available, you can always use one of these apps for creating GIFs on your smartphone. […]