Google has launched plenty of unforgettable and innocuous programs over the years, but one of its most successful and beloved kit bits is Google Photos. While U-turn-on unlimited photo storage recently took off the sheen from the app, photos remain the best photo backup option in the business and the cornerstone of the Android mobile experience.
Looking back at the initial launch seven years later, it seems to me that simplified photo backups are one of Google’s more intelligent plays in the mobile space.
Google Photos — much more than free storage
Google Photos’ continued success has hinged on much more than free storage and automatic backups. The app simplified the editing process, making automatic color and exposure correction recommendations that helped ensure every picture looked its best. The easy-to-use filters helped introduce editing to casual photographers while also providing a suite of sliders for the more experienced. Edits were, and still are, non-destructive, allowing for infinite tweaks and changes to images without degrading image quality — a real rarity even today. Although Photos has never directly competed in the social space, it offers all the tools you need to perfect and share your images all in one place.
Google continues to flesh out its image editing tool kit with much more powerful machine learning-based features. Post-shot adjustable bokeh blur and lighting adjustments are a boon for portraits. Magic Eraser can get rid of photobombers or just be used for a spot of fun. Google continues to increase the range of filters and skin tone options as well, keeping the app relevant as technology presses forward.
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Photos avoided the social scene, but offers all the tools to perfect and share images from one place.
Machine learning has always been a core part of what makes Photos unique and more useful than the competition. Google initially took all the hassle out of organizing a huge library of uncategorized pictures, thanks to AI smarts. Yes, other services offered organization features, but Google did it better. Facial recognition and AI categorization were the cornerstones that allowed the app to search and automatically create albums based on faces even as they age, locations even without geotagging, and other more minute picture features. Want to find all those nice sunset snaps you’ve taken over the years? Google Photos can make you an album for that.
Google quickly took all the hassle out of organizing a huge library of uncategorized pictures.
Automatically categorizing stills by People, Places, and Things without any user input saved countless hours of tedious tagging and simplified digging out a specific image from a vast library. Not to mention that album sharing and the introduction of Recent Highlights made it even easier to share memories with those we care about. These features were impressive back in the day but have only become more useful as users have filled their storage with thousands and thousands of pictures over the past seven years.
Google has its finger in many pies, but Photos stands out as one of its better products — despite now being tied to your Drive storage capacity. Altogether, the combination of editing and sharing tools, backed up by bountiful storage and powerful AI, is ensuring that Google Photos ages incredibly well. Even if you’re not an Android user, Photos has become an indispensable part of so many people’s digital lives.
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