Google reveals Google Photos with free, unlimited photo and video storage [u]
During the keynote presentation at its annual developers conference on Thursday, Google officially announced Google Photos, a new photo storage and backup service that offers unlimited storage for photos and videos.
![](http://photos.appleinsidercdn.com/gallery/13047-7421-all-three-v4-l.jpg)
In the free tier, Google Photos will allow images up to 16 megapixels to be stored at full resolution. Photos taken in higher resolutions will be compressed, but Google says the image quality will not be affected.
Videos, meanwhile, can be stored for free up to 1080p, while higher-resolution clips will be downsampled. In both cases, users with paid Google Drive accounts can choose to store their photos and videos in full, original resolution.
New search features will automatically analyze and tag uploaded photos or videos, and the same editing tools available with Google+ will be available for Google Photos users.
At press time, the Google Photos app had not yet appeared on the App Store, but it is slated to debut today. A Mac desktop client is planned for the future.
Update: Google Photos is now available to download from the iOS App Store.
![](http://photos.appleinsidercdn.com/gallery/13047-7421-all-three-v4-l.jpg)
In the free tier, Google Photos will allow images up to 16 megapixels to be stored at full resolution. Photos taken in higher resolutions will be compressed, but Google says the image quality will not be affected.
Videos, meanwhile, can be stored for free up to 1080p, while higher-resolution clips will be downsampled. In both cases, users with paid Google Drive accounts can choose to store their photos and videos in full, original resolution.
New search features will automatically analyze and tag uploaded photos or videos, and the same editing tools available with Google+ will be available for Google Photos users.
At press time, the Google Photos app had not yet appeared on the App Store, but it is slated to debut today. A Mac desktop client is planned for the future.
Update: Google Photos is now available to download from the iOS App Store.
Comments
I know the purse string are pretty tight at Apple nowadays but how about maybe another 1 GB for free.
Sheesh.
Don't worry the iOS version of the app will be better then the android counterpart.
You don't actually believe any is really free at Google do you
Sheesh
I'd rather sell my soul to the devil
With Google, nothing is free.
Photos taken in [>16 megapixel] resolutions will be compressed, but Google says the image quality will not be affected.
Yeah, sure. This gives me even more trust in Google.
Edit: or has Hooli entered into talks with Pied Piper again?
I'm just not sure how Apple can make it work financially.
Different backend model too. Apple buys storage and bandwidth from Amazon and Microsoft, obviously paying them a profit. Google (and Facebook) develops their own dirt-cheap servers to let them do this.
yes, for ice water.
If so why would they even make an uncompressed format?
Different backend model too. Apple buys storage and bandwidth from Amazon and Microsoft, obviously paying them a profit. Google (and Facebook) develops their own dirt-cheap servers to let them do this.
Are you sure that is really true now? What are all these data centers that have been built / being built doing then?
Lies. That's not what happens. Please provide proof.
No it does not serves ads if you have ghostery and ad aware Adblock etc. installed
Apple isn't going to scan the metadata of your images and target ads based on that metadata.
Most people don't realize how much data is stored within an image.
This is why Google can do this for free.
Besides the apparently awful way that iOS populates the list of apps it's apps share function can share too, Apple needs to rethink it's iCloud pricing model.
EDIT: It just occurred to me that reading metadata might be helpful in searching my own photo catalogs. For instance I might want to find all the images from my Maine vacations. I wonder if Google would be able to do a search of the content based on location?