Tag Archives: cloud storage

Google Improves iPhone Photo Management

Google offers the storage of iPhone photos to the Google Cloud solution as a quick way of freeing up memory on the iPhone. The iPhone has this solution built in with Apple’s iCloud, but if Google Photo or Google Drive is being used for other purposes, these app updates makes it easier to keep everything in one place (Google vs iCloud).

  • Photo syncing to/from the Google Cloud improved 4x faster
  • A new view to the Assistant Tab cards

Within the Google Photo app, choosing the Assistant option along the bottom of any screen, results in a scrollable list of alerts from Google and quick creation buttons.

The quick create options are available from the Photos area as well, along with album viewing options.

The Google Drive app also provides access to the photos on the iPhone and on the Google Cloud/Drive account to reduce the need to jump between apps.

 

 

Was Google’s graphical update to Google+ for the iPhone enough for you to jump in?

Google has been trying, trying very hard, to get you to jump on board with their Google+ social sharing. A lot of the big names in just about every industry have dipped a toe into the Google+ waters. A quick search will result in names you will know. Digging a bit deeper, you may find very little quantity of posts behind that quality of names.

The biggest change to the iPhone app for Google+ was making the string of posts from folks in your ‘Circles’ more graphical. Gone is the headline text, small icon, and teaser text on a plain white background. Now, the posting person’s name and image appear larger, with the headline or teaser text over the top of the key image of the post. This means that searching visually for text your interested in is more difficult, but swiping through the posts and seeing related images is quicker. It’s a interesting path change from a company that has the simplest of Search starting and listing pages to now a almost completely graphical UI in their mobile social app.

In the update prior to this one, a occasional issue was introduced where uploading photos in a post wasn’t always successful. Photos can also be uploaded to libraries on Google+ that you create. A feature that was introduced between the last and this update was the ability to have photos automatically saved from your iPhone to Google as a cloud storage option. This feature is similar to Apple’s Photo Steam, except with Photo Stream the photos sync back to your desktop while with Google they stay on their storage… a couple gigs are provided at no charge, adding more carries charges.

When viewing your photo libraries on Google through Google+, you can choose a single photo to look at comments others have made (those you chose to share). Swiping a photo takes you to the next in the series.

Photos are grouped by Google+ into areas that are similar to what you would see on other social share services. Multiple photos can be attached a post, which you can make viewable to no one, your friend’s circles or the general ‘public’.