New tool allows users to transfer iCloud Photos content to Google Photos
Apple has debuted a new tool that allows users to transfer copies of their iCloud Photos to another service, with Google Photos being the first integration.
Credit: Apple
As the company outlined in a new support document, there's a new "Transfer a copy of your data" option on Apple's privacy website that can be used to transfer iCloud media content to Google Photos.
The process doesn't delete any content from iCloud, but transfers a copy of a user's photos and videos to Google Photos. That could make the tool useful for both transferring services and backup purposes.
However, only the most recent edit of a photo is transferred and duplicates will show up as a single piece of content. Smart Albums, Live Photos, photo stream content, and some other format types aren't currently supported. Videos are transferred separately, while photos will likely be transferred together in their own albums.
Users will need two-factor authentication locking down their Apple ID and a Google Photos account with enough storage space for their iCloud content. The transfer takes between three and seven days.
The service is available in Australia, Canada, the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S. at launch. The service can be accessed online on Apple's privacy webpage.
Credit: Apple
As the company outlined in a new support document, there's a new "Transfer a copy of your data" option on Apple's privacy website that can be used to transfer iCloud media content to Google Photos.
The process doesn't delete any content from iCloud, but transfers a copy of a user's photos and videos to Google Photos. That could make the tool useful for both transferring services and backup purposes.
However, only the most recent edit of a photo is transferred and duplicates will show up as a single piece of content. Smart Albums, Live Photos, photo stream content, and some other format types aren't currently supported. Videos are transferred separately, while photos will likely be transferred together in their own albums.
Users will need two-factor authentication locking down their Apple ID and a Google Photos account with enough storage space for their iCloud content. The transfer takes between three and seven days.
The service is available in Australia, Canada, the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S. at launch. The service can be accessed online on Apple's privacy webpage.
Comments
Of course this could also lead to a lot of synching and coherency issues and generate needless duplication. I do think we're all heading down a path of having to come to terms with defining our own separation between ephemeral data and archival data. Having our cyber-hoard of data duplicated across multiple server platforms doesn't really get us any closer to dealing with it, it simply increases the total footprint, and cost, of our data hoard.
For example when Apple in their privacy policy says "you grant Apple a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available, without any compensation or obligation to you." it does not mean Apple now owns your photos to do with as they wish. Google uses the same general wording. The key is that it will only be made available for purposes that you expressly request.
Apple slowly seems to feel the heat from users and start to understand that the strategy of making users’ live hard to switch to other platforms or even to use other platforms in parallel would be ended by a judge/by lawmakers rather sooner than later.
Who cares about more useless features in photos.
Was wondering what your opinion is on Sunshine?