Google may soon launch a photo app with all of the features of Google+ image, only with more privacy controls, according to screenshots leaked by Android Police.
The app, called Google Photos, will initially be launched on the Android operating system and will be followed on iOS prior to launching on the web at photos.google.com. Thanks to the new features, now Android users can not only share photos or videos in a snap, but they can also preserve some privacy while doing so, according to a report by the Android Police.
To share images or videos via a link in the new Photos app, users just have to select them, and then pop open the sharing menu. Tapping the “Get link” entry, which is at the top, will generate a link and copy it to the user’s clipboard to be quickly pasted for easy sharing.
Google’s new photo app has been long expected in light of long-running rumors regarding Google+’s image functions being spun out into a standalone photo service. In March, Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of products at Google Inc., said that the company is going to place a renewed focus on photos. “Photos are a big use case,” Pichai was quoted having said in a report on Venture Beat. He went on to add, “So we are going to say this is the stream now.”
Photos are a big use case (…) So we are going to say this is the stream now.
The new app’s most eyebrow-raising feature is its alleged privacy controls, which reflect Google’s long-standing vow. In the settings of the app, users can choose to have location metadata stripped from photos that are shared via links; a feature which enhances user privacy. The navigation menu also has a specific area for photos shared via links. From here, users can see all of the links and delete them at will, thus killing any share links— making them inaccessible regardless of where they’ve been shared on the web.
In other Google coverage here at Immortal News, rumors have spurred regarding an anthropomorphic bear that might be in the works at the company’s semi-secretive Google X facility.
