"Other people are doing it too" is not a defense. When you say Google Photos is overpriced, and some less educated person says "But its free," it becomes clear that this is an important aspect of discussing Google and their services.
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Google Photos is next generation.
- Thread starter Razeus
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"Other people are doing it too" is not a defense. When you say Google Photos is overpriced, and some less educated person says "But its free," it becomes clear that this is an important aspect of discussing Google and their services.
Whether a service is worth it, depends also on the price you have to pay and the terms of the license. (Just think of people who love their Adobe apps but don't want to pay for it via a recurring subscription.) And it's not about trusting Google, that's too simplistic, but Google's Free-with-limitations tier may arguably be one advantage.
Moreover, some of the features (like the amazing intelligent search features) are intimately tied to Google's business model (process as much server-side as you can), so I don't think you can divorce the product from the business model of the company.
Apple is really behind in this area. I hope they have a group working on this "machine learning" business.
It's amazing that Google Photos found the face of a given person without so much as me lifting a finger (although I can't attach a name to it yet, but I'm sure that's coming), but I'm still having to do it by hand in Apple Photos like I've been doing since forever.
Google's approach is actually to let users DO something with their photos instead of just storing them. Automatic GIFS, movies, stories, and collages. Or just go old school and make your own albums.
I was on the Dropbox+Carousel wagon, but I'm going to switch due to the slow development of that product. They STILL don't have a way for me to search for a particular photo since they don't have a search feature at all. Nor do they have a way to recognize photos for a particular person or persons. It's just a scroll festival on that platform. Dropbox won't be seeing $99 from me next year as I'll be switching where I store my photos, most likely with Microsoft as I get the Office package included.
It's amazing that Google Photos found the face of a given person without so much as me lifting a finger (although I can't attach a name to it yet, but I'm sure that's coming), but I'm still having to do it by hand in Apple Photos like I've been doing since forever.
Google's approach is actually to let users DO something with their photos instead of just storing them. Automatic GIFS, movies, stories, and collages. Or just go old school and make your own albums.
I was on the Dropbox+Carousel wagon, but I'm going to switch due to the slow development of that product. They STILL don't have a way for me to search for a particular photo since they don't have a search feature at all. Nor do they have a way to recognize photos for a particular person or persons. It's just a scroll festival on that platform. Dropbox won't be seeing $99 from me next year as I'll be switching where I store my photos, most likely with Microsoft as I get the Office package included.
I'm not sure if or when Apple will get there. It's what Google does. Google Maps is similarly still far superior to Apple Maps when searching for something generic - it's all about the data and the ability to get it and process it.
Google is way ahead of the pack here. I'm sure if Adobe or Apple were able to include something like this client-side in its next version of Lightroom, the creative professionals (and amateurs like me) would go nuts. But it's really a pity that Google's tech isn't available without that asterisk — even to just be able to do these things locally independently of whether you want Google to be able to analyze your data.
I completely agree - the power of Google Photos is immediately obvious while Apple's solution is far less 'intelligent'. Yes, you need to give up more of your data to Google, but don't confuse privacy with security - giving more personal data to Google doesn't inherently put that data at more risk - Google have an excellent track record when it comes to security. Additionally, your personal data is already being sold left right and centre all over the place on both the web and in the physical world - anyone who thinks they are somehow protecting themselves by avoiding Google is deluding themselves. At least with Google, you know what they're doing, why they're doing it, and you're getting a load of benefit for doing so. You also know that they are only using it to increase the targeting advertisers can do - they aren't actually giving your data to the advertisers - it remains within Google.
Personally, I think online privacy is a unicorn - it is a wonderful idea that doesn't exist. Instead, focus on online security, and try to get as much benefit as you can from relinquishing your data - it is out there anyway, so you may as well make the most of it.
Personally, I think online privacy is a unicorn - it is a wonderful idea that doesn't exist. Instead, focus on online security, and try to get as much benefit as you can from relinquishing your data - it is out there anyway, so you may as well make the most of it.
Google has definitely done a great iteration here. Good stuff. Getting machine learning algorithms trained does require processing over a lot of data (and not just that of a single person), and they have that in droves, obviously. Apple's stance seems to be to try and do things locally, which presents challenges.
Not just Apple's, everyone else's solution, I think people would kill to have these automatic tagging and search capabilities in Lightroom.
Sumimasen. Maybe no need. I am more than happy with CC Lr + Ps and the only plugin I need these days is Perfect Photo Suite.
Yes, perhaps you don't need this, but even if you don't need a feature personally, I think it's quite easy to see that many, many people would want it. This would be a feature that'd make me endure LR's UI (just a matter of personal taste here).
Google Photos PROS:
- Unlimited Space for Pics below 16MP and videos below 1080p
- You can upload automatically your photos and free space from your phone.
- Great for backup.
- Security. Google servers are secure.
Google Photos CONS:
- Privacy. Forget about it. We're talking about Google.
- Photos and videos are COMPRESSED. Not worth it for backup IMO.
- Organizing pictures is a mess when you try to upload old pictures. It's metadata hell.
- Unstable. It's an early release and constantly the app freezes when watching videos.
Alternatives?
Best option is Apple Photo Stream but it's PAID.
Flickr gives you 1TB for FREE and doesn't compress your photos.
Servers not as secure as Google's
App is not as straight-forward as Apple's or Google's.
Best thing would be for Google Photos to stop compressing pictures and Flickr to improve it's UI. I think it's more likely the latter from happening.
- Unlimited Space for Pics below 16MP and videos below 1080p
- You can upload automatically your photos and free space from your phone.
- Great for backup.
- Security. Google servers are secure.
Google Photos CONS:
- Privacy. Forget about it. We're talking about Google.
- Photos and videos are COMPRESSED. Not worth it for backup IMO.
- Organizing pictures is a mess when you try to upload old pictures. It's metadata hell.
- Unstable. It's an early release and constantly the app freezes when watching videos.
Alternatives?
Best option is Apple Photo Stream but it's PAID.
Flickr gives you 1TB for FREE and doesn't compress your photos.
Servers not as secure as Google's
App is not as straight-forward as Apple's or Google's.
Best thing would be for Google Photos to stop compressing pictures and Flickr to improve it's UI. I think it's more likely the latter from happening.
Any good backup is not going to be free. And if you choose the non free version, photos are not compressed.
Privacy - that's been discussed ad nauseam here already. You either are ok with it or not.
Agree about older photos that lack metadata. More challenging. But add them to a Collection and GP will respect that Collection title when it comes to searching.
Agree about stability of iOS app. Get plenty of crashes. But hoping that will improve. Web app is pretty decent.
Not sure why you say Photo Stream is an alternative. Totally different type of product. And isn't it free?
Privacy - that's been discussed ad nauseam here already. You either are ok with it or not.
Agree about older photos that lack metadata. More challenging. But add them to a Collection and GP will respect that Collection title when it comes to searching.
Agree about stability of iOS app. Get plenty of crashes. But hoping that will improve. Web app is pretty decent.
Not sure why you say Photo Stream is an alternative. Totally different type of product. And isn't it free?
Google will give you not much space, 15GB I believe. Flickr gives you 1TB and no compression.
Fair enough. I'm not putting wood in the fire, just mentioning.
It's free for 5GB. I wouldn't even count it as space. For Photostream I mean iCloud Photos, as a way for saving pictures in Apple servers (cloud)
I really like Google Photos and Flickr, just wish GP didn't compress my pictures in the unlimited option and Flickr had an UI like GP.
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Maybe Obama voters want something for free. Most people want a good deal. Flickr offers 1TB for FREE (and doesn't compress your photos). That's a better deal than Google's IMO.
And yet doesn't do what Google does. It just stores photos. The app is a joke for everyday, non-professional use. I guess that's what they are trying to do this camera roll thing and put your photos in a timeline.
But I guess you can't see the trade offs of what you get and what you give up.
To me, Flickr has always been more focused on the sharing aspect of their service. I don't want that. I want somewhere to store my photos so that they are backed up, and easy to find what I need. I had hoped IPL would be that, but it wasn't. Neither was Carousel. So far GP is the closest to what I need.
This. Everytime Google comes up, people start shouting "Privacy!" "They'll just mine your data!" "You're the product!"
But next time some of these anti-Google people shout these things, ask them this:
Show me where I can delete my Apple ID account for good...
Show me a dashboard to where I can see what information Apple has on me - and choose to delete it...
Because you see, I can go to my Google settings account right now and delete it at will. I can go to my Google dashboard and see what info each app has and clear out any history in that app anytime. You can't do that with Apple. There's absolutely NO WAY TO DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT WITH APPLE.
If I want a new clean Apple account I just have to accept the old one will be there forever?
So please tell me about Privacy again? What is Apple hiding? Apple talks a good game about privacy, yet is not transparent about what they have.
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I don't understand the difference between picasaweb.google.com and photos.google.com, except for interface. The latter looks better, but with the former I get more choices. I especially like being able to copy a photo directly from picasaweb to panaramio; that option doesn't exist in photos.google, or I couldn't find it.