Google Photos on Android is finally getting revamped video editing features months after they launched on iOS.
Spotted by Android Police, the rollout brings new cropping options, individual frame exports, horizon correction and audio removal tools to the Photos video editor. The app will also let users colour correct videos and apply filters. There’s even a video mark-up tool.
Android Police also notes that the features appear to be rolling out via a server-side update to all Android devices, not just Pixel phones. If you don’t see the new tools in your Photos app yet, make sure you update to the latest version. If that doesn’t bring the tools, you may just have to wait for the server-side update to hit your device.
Google fully detailed these new video editing capabilities in a February blog post. The Verge also detailed these new features when they arrived on iOS back in August. While iOS got the video editing tools first, it’s worth noting that the new image editing tools in Google Photos aren’t yet available on iOS, although Google said they’d come soon.
Better video editing comes as Google seeks to monetize Photos
More powerful video editing tools will be a welcome addition to the Photos app. It’s always felt like the app prioritized images over video — not much of a surprise, as the app is called Photos, after all. Still, with smartphone cameras getting better at taking video, it’s a shame Google has taken so long to add excellent editing tools to the Photos app.
At least Google didn’t try to monetize the new tools. Google’s been working hard over the last few months to transform the Photos app into a money-maker. First, the company announced plans to move away from its free photo backup model, which allowed users to back up as many photos and videos as they wanted, as long as they used Photo’s ‘high-quality’ setting (or they owned a Pixel). In June, Google Photos will count high-quality backups against your account storage — Google accounts get 15GB of free before they need to start paying for storage.
Another monetization scheme Google recently added leverages new machine learning-powered editing tools. In the same February announcement the company detailed the new video editing tools, it also outlined plans to bring machine learning editing features previously exclusive to the Google Pixel line and launch them on other Android phones, but only for people who subscribe to Google’s ‘One’ cloud storage service.
Source: Google Via: Android Police, The Verge
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