Google Photos just got a neat new update that adds Live Photos supports on iOS, which means that users can now back up their animated photos.
Google has put a lot of effort into making its standalone Photos app worthwhile, adding various improvements and upgrades to enhance the experience. The latest update now finally allows for Live Photos backup, showing the animated pictures in all their glory.
Apple introduced Live Photos with iOS 9 and its iPhone 6s/ 6s Plus smartphones, extending the functionality to the iPad as well. Other apps, however, had to add support for Live Photos, and Google Photos now joins the party.
Live Photos support on iOS is here! Get the update: https://t.co/VzdXZ81FX5 pic.twitter.com/D8RSvoi4n2
— Google Photos (@googlephotos) March 7, 2016
Google Photos has several neat features, including the ability to back up your photo collection, organize your images and search through all photos and videos to easily find what you're looking for. Users can either back up their photos manually, or enable automatic backup so each photo they take is seamlessly uploaded to the cloud for safekeeping.
With the latest update, Google Photos for iOS now extends the same features to Live Photos as well, allowing users to store, organize and search through Live Photos even if they delete them from the device's Camera Roll.
Once the Live Photos are uploaded to Google Photos on iOS, users will be able to see the animation by using Force Touch on the image, just like they would in the native iOS Photo Gallery.
For better organization and easier access, the images are also labeled with the "Live Photo" icon at the top of the screen, so users know at a glance that it's not a static photo.
On the other hand, it's worth pointing out that downloading Live Photo from Google Photos to your device via iCloud Photo Sharing will no longer show the animation - just the static image. To have the fully animated image, users would have to save the Live Photo from the Google Photos backup to the Camera Roll. It should then be playable in the Apple Photos app.
The even greater news is that the Live Photos feature on Google Photos seems to be retroactive. Up until now, users who backed up Live Photos to Google Photos would see them simply as static images. Now, this update animates Live Photos even if they were backed up two months ago.
The update is now live and available for download from Apple's iTunes App Store, so try it out and let us know what you think of it.
