When Apple announced iMovie 1.2, I was especially curious to see how it translated to the iPhone and iPod touch. To my relief, Apple didn’t cram the new interface onto the small screen, even if it’s a high-resolution Retina display. It retains the minimal interface used in the first version of iMovie. The small-screen version doesn’t offer the Precision Editor or audio waveforms, but otherwise, you get a similar editing experience as on the iPad. The Video pane appears as a separate screen instead of tucked in the corner, but you can tap to select a clip and adjust its selection handles before adding it to the timeline. Dragging your finger along a clip brings up a preview thumbnail. And background audio clips appear as a green bar at the bottom of the timeline, instead of as a green field behind the other clips.

In the previous version of iMovie, you needed to send a finished movie back to the device’s Camera Roll before exporting it. Now, you can export the movie directly to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and CNN iReport, as well as to the iPad’s Camera Roll. (It’s odd that MobileMe isn’t on that list; Apple pointed out to me that uploading to MobileMe is available via the Camera Roll, which means you need to go to the Photos or Camera apps to access it.) HD-quality options are offered for each of them, which is good if you have the bandwidth to send 720p files.

Of course, you don’t need to send your movie across the Internet to view it outside the iPad. iMovie supports playing a movie on devices like the Apple TV that support AirPlay. When you start playing full-screen and tap the AirPlay icon, iMovie creates an AirPlay-compatible version that appears to be 720p resolution. (In fact, I noticed the typical full-screen playback on the iPad itself was sometimes slightly lower resolution, presumably to play the movie in real time without rendering.)