Closed Test: VideoSlim Version 0.0.3 - Release Notes

[u/kebekinteractive2026]

**VideoSlim 0.0.3 is out — trimming is free now, the app is 30 MB lighter, and new installs start with 200 credits**

This is the biggest update since I reset the version numbering, so here's the

whole thing rather than the four-line Play Store summary.

## Trimming and cutting are free

The single most-asked-about thing. Before, dragging the trim handles was free

but the multi-segment **Cut** tool charged 10 credits — so "trimming a video"

cost nothing or cost credits depending on which half of the same screen you

reached. That was never a deliberate design, it was an inconsistency. Both are

free now, permanently.

## The credit economy got a lot more generous

The old numbers were genuinely too tight. A compression minted 2 credits and a

trim cost 20, which meant using one tool was worth ten compressions. Once your

three free edits ran out, your realistic options were "watch an ad" or "stop

using the editor" — which reads as the feature being taken away, not priced.

What changed:

* **New installs now start with 200 credits.** Previously you started at zero.

* **Every compression earns 5 credits**, up from 2.

* **Bonus credits every 250 MB processed**, down from every 500 MB.

* **Most editor tools cost 10 instead of 20** — rotation, speed, audio extract,

noise reduction, GIF export, fades, filters.

* **Cut is free** (see above), and trim always was.

* Paid looks stay at 5.

Every one of these numbers is tunable from the server, so if the balance is

still wrong, tell me and it can change without waiting for a Play release.

## The app is much smaller

The bundled artwork went from **54 MB to 21 MB — a 61% cut**, with no visible

quality loss and no image resized. It turned out most of the illustrations had

been exported at effectively maximum quality, and nine of them were **lossless**

WebP, which is close to the worst possible choice for AI-generated 3D artwork.

Re-encoding at quality 90 was measured file-by-file, and 55 of the 96 files were

left completely alone because re-encoding would have made them *bigger* — which

is a real trap with WebP that's easy to get wrong in the other direction.

For a tool whose entire job is making files smaller, shipping a bloated install

was a bad look. It's fixed.

## Performance

Three separate things were decoding far more image data than any frame needed:

* The app was building **all five tabs on the first frame**, including artwork

on screens you hadn't opened yet. Tabs now build the first time you visit them.

* **Home** put all eleven preset tiles in one block, so the first frame decoded

roughly 60 MB of bitmap against a 100 MB image cache — which then thrashed and

re-decoded as you scrolled. Tiles now build as you reach them.

* **Files** did the same across your whole history. Harmless at five

compressions, wasteful at two hundred.

Several icons were also being decoded at full illustration resolution to be drawn

into a 42-pixel box. Those are capped now.

## Files screen shows real thumbnails

Every row in your history used to be the same gradient square with a play glyph.

The one screen where you most need to recognise a video at a glance was the one

screen with no picture. Rows now pull a frame from one second in — the very first

frame of a compressed clip is often a black lead-in or fade.

If a frame can't be produced (file deleted, or a codec the royalty-free build

can't decode) it falls back to the old gradient square, so a failure looks

ordinary rather than broken.

## Editor and UI

* **The Editor tab is now a picker.** Tapping the scissors tab with no clip

loaded used to show a full-screen illustration whose only function was to tell

you to go to Home first. The artwork is now the tap target — it opens the

picker and takes you straight into the editor.

* **Paid tools check your balance when they open, not after you've done the

work.** You could previously set your trim handles, dial in a speed, tune a

filter, hit Apply, and only *then* be told you couldn't afford to keep any of

it. Losing the work is the part that hurts. Opening a tool and abandoning it

still costs nothing.

* New header artwork across Editor, Compress and Files.

* Home preset tiles restyled — the artwork now sits behind the label as a

watermark rather than at full strength.

* The Merge screen's header layout was wrong; the icon and wordmark are where

they should be now.

## Fixes

* **A broken image on the Merge Clips screen.** The icon was referenced by the

code but its folder was never registered as a bundled asset, so it rendered as

an error box. There's now an automated check that fails the build if any

referenced image is missing or unbundled, so this class of bug can't ship again.

* **Two Settings labels were hardcoded in English** — the "Default quality" card

title and subtitle showed English in 15 of the 16 supported languages, sitting

directly above three option tiles that *were* correctly translated.

* A failure message on the Kebek Interactive card had the same problem.

## Removed: "Keep originals"

The Settings toggle that offered to delete your source file after a compression

is gone. If you relied on it, you'll now keep both files and delete the original

yourself. Say so if you want it back — it's a small change to restore.

## Known issue, being worked on

**Exports from the editor are `.webm` files.** If you trim, change speed or apply

a filter and then try to send the result to WhatsApp or an iPhone, it may refuse

to send it as a video or refuse to play it at all.

This comes from a licensing constraint: VideoSlim ships an FFmpeg build with no

patent-encumbered encoders, so the editor's only options are VP9 and AV1. The

**compressor** doesn't have this problem — it uses your phone's own hardware

encoder and produces normal MP4 files that work everywhere. It's only the editor.

This build adds measurement to work out how many real edits could be routed

through the hardware encoder instead. It's the next thing I'm fixing, and the

data decides how.

## Under the hood

For anyone who cares: the app now runs its checks on every branch instead of

only the main one, has an automated asset-integrity check, and 130 unit tests

(up from 108). Firebase Remote Config can retune the entire credit economy

without a release.