Latest news with #GooglePhotos'
Time of India
5 days ago
- Time of India
Google pauses Photos' app AI-powered 'Ask Photos'
has paused the rollout of its experimental "Ask Photos" feature in Google Photos after users complained about slow performance and poor user experience, according to a Google Photos product manager. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Jamie Aspinall, product manager for Google Photos, confirmed the pause on X Tuesday, citing three critical issues: latency, quality, and user experience. "Ask Photos isn't where it needs to be," Aspinall wrote in response to user criticism about the AI-powered search tool. The feature, which uses Google's Gemini AI models to let users search their photo libraries with natural language queries, has been rolling out to a limited number of users since October 2024. Users can ask questions like "Show me the best photo from each national park I've visited" or "What themes have we had for birthday parties?" However, early users reported significant problems. The feature often missed relevant photos, ran painfully slow, and provided an inferior experience compared to Google Photos' traditional keyword search. Some users described the AI search as making "Google Photos worse" overall. Aspinall said the rollout has been paused "at very small numbers" while Google addresses these issues. The company expects to ship an improved version in approximately two weeks that "brings back the speed and recall of the original search." Google first announced Ask Photos at its I/O developer conference in May 2024, positioning it as a major upgrade that would make finding specific memories easier. The feature was designed to understand context and subjects in photos using Gemini's multimodal capabilities, even reading text within images. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now This isn't Google's first AI feature pause. The company previously halted AI Overviews in Search after viral mistakes and paused Gemini's image generation tool due to historical inaccuracies. Users who currently have access to Ask Photos can disable it through the app's settings under "Gemini features in Google Photos."
Android Authority
6 days ago
- General
- Android Authority
How one Google Photos feature is saving my photo library from chaos
Joe Maring / Android Authority As a Google Photos user for over 10 years, with thousands of photos in my library, it's safe to say that things often get chaotic. I regularly delete unwanted photos and try to organize them into albums, but even then, managing a library this large can still be a massive undertaking. One of the biggest issues I have is with my main Photos page often looking horribly messy. I'm someone who takes a lot of similar pictures, whether of my pets, partner, a sunset, etc. I like having multiple angles/shots to capture a moment, and while it's great for looking back on those memories, it also means my gallery of pictures is crowded with countless similar-looking photos. Thankfully, Google has rolled out a new feature to make this a thing of the past. A new 'manual stack' feature recently appeared on my Google Photos app, and it's quickly made my photo library more organized than ever before. Would you use Google Photos' manual stack feature? 0 votes Yes! Give it to me now. NaN % Maybe. NaN % No, I don't see the need for it. NaN % Manual photo stacks are exactly what I needed Joe Maring / Android Authority Photo stacks in Google Photos. In November 2023, Google Photos got 'Photo stacks' for the first time. If Google detects that you have multiple similar photos taken around the same time, they're automatically grouped into a stack. You can tap on the stack to see all of the individual shots, and it means that instead of having five spots of your home page taken up by five similar-looking images, you see just one with a stack icon. Since photo stacks rolled out almost two years ago, they've become one of my favorite features in Google Photos — but there's been just one problem. On multiple occasions, I've had a handful of similar pictures that weren't stacked together, forcing me to decide whether to let my library stay looking cluttered or to delete some 'unnecessary' pictures to keep things tidy. Thankfully, Google's new manual stacking option solves this. While photo stacks are still automatically created in the background for you, you've now also got the option to create them yourself. If you select two or more images in Google Photos, you can tap a new 'Stack photos' button to bundle them in a new stack. If you're someone who takes one picture of something and calls it a day, this probably doesn't matter all that much. But as a self-proclaimed over-taker of photos, manual stacks have been a godsend. Two un-stacked photos of my dog Prompting the new "Stack photos" button The two dog photos now bundled into a single stack Take these two pictures of my dog, Damon, as an example. Both of them are adorable, and as similar as they may be, I don't want to get rid of either one. At the same time, I don't need to see both of them on the homepage. And now, I don't! Since I can manually stack the photos, I get to save each one while reducing library clutter. Here's an even better example. I took a lot of photos during a recent show at a local brewery. Google Photos automatically stacked some shots, but it wasn't perfect. It left some photos entirely unstacked, while four photos taken in rapid succession were strangely split up into two stacks of two. Before manual stacking After manual stacking Previously, I would have had to make do with this. However, manually stacking allows me to clean things up significantly. Now, instead of seven photos taking up five spots in my library, the same number of shots is reduced to just two squares. Saving one or two gallery spots here and there may not seem like much, but done multiple times over, it quickly adds up. I get to keep all of the pictures I want, my Photos app is more organized than ever before, and not seeing countless similar shots while scrolling through my library makes my brain happy. A limited feature, for now Joe Maring / Android Authority My one and only issue with manual stacking is its limited availability. The feature has been live on the Photos app on my iPhone for at least a couple of weeks, but it's still nowhere to be found on the Google Photos desktop site or Android app. There's evidence that this will change (hopefully) sometime soon, but for now, it's an iOS-only feature. Even with the iPhone exclusivity, though, manual stacking has still been a game changer. As small a feature as it may seem on paper, it's made my Google Photos library look better than ever, and I already can't imagine not having it.
Express Tribune
28-04-2025
- Express Tribune
Google Photos enhances face recognition with new thumbnail feature
Listen to article In a move set to transform how users interact with their photo collections, Google Photos is introducing a new feature aimed at improving the speed and efficiency of facial recognition. This update, still in the testing phase, will streamline the process of identifying individuals in photos, making it faster to spot faces in your images without extra taps or swipes. The feature, currently being trialed in version 7.26 of the Google Photos Android app, adds a new row of face thumbnails beneath each photo. These thumbnails, which represent individuals recognized in the photo, offer users an immediate glance at the faces Google Photos has detected, allowing them to quickly identify people in their images. Although the thumbnails currently lack name labels, users will likely be able to tap on each one to get more detailed information. This new row is designed to simplify the process of searching for specific individuals in a collection, potentially enabling users to view more photos featuring that person with just a few taps. In addition to enhancing user experience, this feature could be used for various other tasks, such as selecting people for editing or grouping images. However, the feature also takes up valuable screen space, which could limit the display of other interface elements, such as selection buttons for photo stacks. Google will likely adjust how these controls appear, based on the context and the image type being viewed. This new update builds upon Google Photos' already established use of facial recognition technology, which automatically sorts photos into Face Groups, making it easier to locate images of specific people or pets. Users can still access larger face thumbnails with name labels in the app's 'People' section for more in-depth identification. The feature remains in the testing phase, and its final version may undergo changes before it is fully released.
Forbes
03-04-2025
- Forbes
Google Photos Could Be Getting A Smart Redesign – Here's What To Expect
Google Photos is poised for a significant visual overhaul, prioritizing automatically-created 'Memories' and a more intuitive search experience. This potential redesign was spotted in the form of a pair of screenshots in a consumer research survey on The first image displays the current layout while a second details a proposed update featuring several key design alterations. April 3 update below: Google is testing a fix for a long-standing Google Photos Issue with face detection. This article was originally published on April 2 Thanks to Telegram user @Arfus_UwU for sharing the initial findings on this potential Google Photos redesign. While Google hasn't confirmed these changes, the screenshots give us a rare insight into the company's future design thinking. Let's take a look at the big changes proposed in this redesign and how a selection of small changes could bring big improvements to the app. Overall, the proposed redesign places a greater emphasis on pictures by enlarging images where possible, taking up more of the screen and minimizing distracting elements. Here's a breakdown of the changes: Memories are given much greater prominence with much larger picture tiles, making them more engaging and easier to browse quickly. The tiles also incorporate new text enhancements, like bolder text overlays that can pass behind objects in the photos, making monthly recaps and person-specific Memories easier to identify at a glance. In the example picture, the 'Best of November' memory has been renamed to 'Recap' with a large 'NOV' title overlaid over a selection of pictures. Similarly, a memory for the person 'Tao' now features a tighter crop and a larger name that appears to pass behind his head. Above the Memories tiles, the colored text 'Google Photos' is replaced with a less distracting monochrome version of the familiar Google Photos 'pinwheel' icon. Below the Memories, the day view section now features rounded corners, lending it a friendlier look in line with Google's Material 3 design principles. The title is now centered, and the 'select all' button moved to the left of the screen making way for a new sorting or filtering tool on the right. Individual photos now have an information overlay in the middle rather than on the right-hand side, and the 'play button' icon has been removed from video thumbnails. The row of icons at the bottom of the screen has been replaced with a floating search bar. This change makes the full height of the screen available for displaying photos rather than reserving a bar at the bottom just for buttons. The search bar is now named 'Search or ask' and includes a microphone icon, encouraging users to move beyond simple Google Photos search terms and try the Ask Photos feature with voice or text input. A new section featuring four small icons is presented to the right of the search bar, presumably to access library sections such as 'Photos' and 'Collections' previously found at the bottom of the screen. From the look of this single photo, the proposed Google Photos redesign appears much improved. Note, however, that the survey doesn't actually ask which design the user prefers. Instead it asks them to rate the new design as 'outdated' or 'modern' on a scale of 0 to 50. This suggests that Google strongly values keeping the app fresh and modern look as well as improving usability and functionality. April 3 update: A recent report reveals that Google is testing a Google Photos update to relieve one of the app's long-standing pain points — face detection. A recent report from Android Authority reveals that Google is redesigning the tools you use to manage people detected and tagged in photos. One of the most useful organizational features of Google Photos is its ability to recognize people's faces and automatically sort their pictures into groups. This function makes searching for pictures of particular people easy and enables the app to generate Memories dedicated to particular individuals. The problem is that Google Photos doesn't always get face recognition right: I've seen examples of disappearing face tags and even cases where the app had incorrectly tagged hundreds of faces as the wrong person. Google provides tools for correcting these mistakes under a dedicated 'Edit faces' page, but the tools are far from intuitive. The page contains no instructions or descriptive text and relies on guesswork when using it for the first time. Now, as revealed in unreleased interface updates discovered by app specialist AssembleDebug, Google is testing a streamlined and much more intuitive method. The updated design does away with the 'Edit faces' page altogether and adds a small drop-down menu to each face in the 'People' section that you'll see whenever you swipe up on a photo containing a detected person. This menu offers just two options: 'Remove from this photo' and 'This is someone else.' The first option untags the person in the picture (it doesn't edit them out of the photo!), while the second lets you correct the tag by selecting the correct person from the people the app has already recognized or by tapping 'Create new' to add a new person. The changes aren't live yet, and may never be implemented. However, at least one user reports seeing the features live in their app temporarily., I hope Google does go ahead and roll out this change, although it appears to work only on a single photo at a time. We still need the ability to correct these tags in a group of pictures in one go. Follow @paul_monckton on Instagram.
Forbes
02-04-2025
- Forbes
Google Photos Survey Reveals Potential App Redesign: Here's What's New
A recent survey reveals a possible new design for Google Photos. Google Photos is poised for a significant visual overhaul, prioritizing automatically-created 'Memories' and a more intuitive search experience. This potential redesign was spotted in the form of a pair of screenshots in a consumer research survey on The first image displays the current layout while a second details a proposed update featuring several key design alterations. A recent survey reveals a possible new design for Google Photos. Thanks to Telegram user @Arfus_UwU for sharing the initial findings on this potential Google Photos redesign. While Google hasn't confirmed these changes, the screenshots give us a rare insight into the company's future design thinking. Let's take a look at the big changes proposed in this redesign and how a selection of small changes could bring big improvements to the app. Overall, the proposed redesign places a greater emphasis on pictures by enlarging images where possible, taking up more of the screen and minimizing distracting elements. Here's a breakdown of the changes: Memories are given much greater prominence with much larger picture tiles, making them more engaging and easier to browse quickly. The tiles also incorporate new text enhancements, like bolder text overlays that can pass behind objects in the photos, making monthly recaps and person-specific Memories easier to identify at a glance. In the example picture, the 'Best of November' memory has been renamed to 'Recap' with a large 'NOV' title overlaid over a selection of pictures. Similarly, a memory for the person 'Tao' now features a tighter crop and a larger name that appears to pass behind his head. Above the Memories tiles, the colored text 'Google Photos' is replaced with a less distracting monochrome version of the familiar Google Photos 'pinwheel' icon. Below the Memories, the day view section now features rounded corners, lending it a friendlier look in line with Google's Material 3 design principles. The title is now centered, and the 'select all' button moved to the left of the screen making way for a new sorting or filtering tool on the right. Individual photos now have an information overlay in the middle rather than on the right-hand side, and the 'play button' icon has been removed from video thumbnails. The row of icons at the bottom of the screen has been replaced with a floating search bar. This change makes the full height of the screen available for displaying photos rather than reserving a bar at the bottom just for buttons. The search bar is now named 'Search or ask' and includes a microphone icon, encouraging users to move beyond simple Google Photos search terms and try the Ask Photos feature with voice or text input. A new section featuring four small icons is presented to the right of the search bar, presumably to access library sections such as 'Photos' and 'Collections' previously found at the bottom of the screen. From the look of this single photo, the proposed Google Photos redesign appears much improved. Note, however, that the survey doesn't actually ask which design the user prefers. Instead it asks them to rate the new design as 'outdated' or 'modern' on a scale of 0 to 50. This suggests that Google strongly values keeping the app fresh and modern look as well as improving usability and functionality. Follow @paul_monckton on Instagram.
