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Google's Free, Unlimited Google Photos Service Now Available on iOS and Web
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The catch is that it's not actually free. It's just that somebody else is paying for it instead of you.
The "somebody else" is advertisers (as with all of google's services). You do the math.
Yep, exactly the same way that this Apple centric website is paid for. Ads.
Ditto for virtually every service that most of the ad whiners here use for free, from pron sites to Google Maps to YouTube to Facebook to Twitter.
(Unless you contribute to your favorite sites, like some of us do to avoid seeing ads. Anyone who doesn't do so, has no leg to stand on when it comes to complaining about ad supported services. From any provider they use.)
5GB per Apple ID for iCloud is miserly. At the least we should get a quota based on the size of the device as well as for the number of devices you purchase. So if you buy a 64GB phone and a 64GB iPad you should get an aggregate 128GB iCloud quota. It appropriately rewards and incentivizes repeat and high value customer purchases. As it is I have to share the tiny 5GB space with my iPhone, iPad and MacBook. I'm penalized for buying more stuff from them.
The 5D is a specialist's camera. It is not what 99% of Google's customers use.
I think that is what is meant by "normal".
There is a big difference with this one - Google is indexing your personal, private pictures - your nieces, nephews, kids, private moments ... and using it to make money - I have a HUGE problem with that. I much prefer to pay Apple $4/month ( a cup of coffee) to store my pictures and not use them for advertising. I do however, hope that this makes Apple give us more services for that money (or lower it a bit) - more indexing (for my personal use only), include music in that backup ...
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iPhoto - replaced with something significantly better
Aperture - was it all that good to begin with? thru the use of extensions, potentially replaced with something better (can still be used now)
Rubbish. Total and utter rubbish. Where is Google making money off your photos? Point out to me somewhere I can read that says they scan through all my photos and then sell this data. Nowhere. There are no ads in Google photos. None. zero. if there are no ads how and what can they sell others about my photos?
Already have 1TB of OneDrive storage so this comes a bit too late.
But I hope Apple is spurred to up their iCloud service. Those prices are outrageous compared to their competition.
But I hope Apple is spurred to up their iCloud service. Those prices are outrageous compared to their competition.
Miserly is the best way to describe it. I subscribe for more space because of how much I need it but it's somewhat embarrassing that Apple is so cheap with the storage.
The fact that 5gb is less than even the smallest capacity of an iPhone or iPad, and that the 5gb is shared amongst as many devices as a user owns, is the bigger problem to me.
Power users, people on this site for instance, know that there is such a limit. But casual users just assume, partly because they are told by Apple, that your device and photos are backed up to the cloud. The limits are not nearly as well communicated (yes, they are documented, but certainly not widely known and understood by casual users).
I cannot count the number of times I've been asked by family and friends about why a backup cannot be completed, and 100% of the time it is because of the number of photos overtaking the storage limit. Therefore, in fact, their photos are not being backed up in their entirety.
Minimally, for it to just work as the saying goes, storage capacity on iCloud must equal device capacity (minus system files if you want to be completely accurate).
I believe that they are actually doing a disservice by offering a "partial backup solution" even for free.
Sorry, no way is Photos significantly better than iPhoto. Maybe in time it will be, but right now it still feels like someone's half-finished app that they built to learn how to code for the Mac.
I like Photos on OS X but the cloud side of things doesn't work for me.
I can either use Photo Stream: all iPhone camera roll photos appear on my Mac. But there's no way to sort through and delete them as I can't view them on their own. I pretty much would want to put them into an album or delete them, so I need a 'not in an album album' or 'other photos' section.
Or iCloud Photos: but I have 7gb of photos, so it would cost money. There's no option to sync only the first 5gb of photos. Or to keep only my first few events in iCloud.
If Apple fix either of those problems, I'll be a happy man.
I have been using the new Google Photo apps on both iPad & iPhone as well as viewing the web interface. I cannot say a bad word about it, it works flawlessly. It's a terrible shame that Google is so far ahead of apple in this regard. I pay for 200GB of Apple iCloud space that I refuse to use for pictures because it's crass and there is always a threat of losing your images. You have to decide if you wish to have lower resolution pictures on your devices and full size in the cloud, then deleting anything from your device deletes it from the cloud! It's like you have little idea of how things are actually stored, then add in sharing features and it gets even more messy. Yet here we have Google that delivers a beautiful product that allows you to whizz through thousands of thumbnails with ease and view them easily, on iPad/iPhone or the web. I love apple, I do not dislike Google and will happily use their superior products unlike some on this forum.
Yeah, I have seen a lot of "OMG pleas help me!" posts on Facebook since iCloud came around. Also a few that deleted all their photos in confusion thinking the photos where being stored in "the cloud"..
The non-teckie communication about this feature sure has been lacking.
It´s far from a "set and forget" feature. Make it pay-only or make it work on a basic level at least..
I like most auto face detections but I don't know how to correct some wrong categorization with this new app.
I don't have time to read the terms of service. Does anyone know whether this new service gives Google the rights to all the pics you upload? I know Facebook owns everything you post and I would bet Google claims ownership of all pics loaded on their servers too but I honestly don't know. If anyone does know please share.
Sorry Apple, 5GB for iCloud doesn't cut it anymore. I moved everything to Amazon cloud last month and will use this Google photo service in tandem as well. Still no family sharing feature in this Google Photos service but the basic is free and there are organization and editing features. Amazon doesn't have this. Amazon and Apple should be put on notice from Google this week.
I'm not so sure. I just skimmed the terms and conditions for this app as posted in the App Store and it looks like they do indeed have the right to use, reproduce, and even modify your content uploaded to their services. Not just google either, their "partners" have this access as well. While they can't claim "ownership" they can still do pretty much whatever they want with your data including your pictures. I'm gonna look up apples terms because I suspect they are exactly the same.
Edit: yep, apple has the same language in the iCloud terms of service. They explicitly state that they do not "own" your content but then say that if you go to share it with anyone else that gives them a worldwide license to do just about anything with it.
You need to understand WHY the language is there. It's not so that can "share" your photos in public without asking. It's a cloud service and your data can be stored in many locations around the World. They need this language in the t&c's so that they are covered legally when they serve up or store your photos in different locations. It order to manage your photos, move them from location to location they need to "own" the rights to them.
As you say this is nothing unique to Google. Apple, Facebook, MS and others all have it.
I've yet to hear of anyone's private photos being shared publicly (except when hacked) by any co's. Not going to happen.
As you say this is nothing unique to Google. Apple, Facebook, MS and others all have it.
I've yet to hear of anyone's private photos being shared publicly (except when hacked) by any co's. Not going to happen.