Earlier this year, Google released Motion Stills, an iOS app that can stabilize shaky Live Photos and enable users to share them beyond Apple's pool of devices. Now, Google is porting these Motion Stills functionalities to version 2.0 of the Google Photos app on iOS.
Adopting Motion Stills' rendering and video stabilization technology, Google Photos acts as a virtual camera operator that can freeze a Live Photos background into a still image or create sweeping cinematic pans. Videos taken while running on an uneven field or from a ship in rough seas become much smoother after getting processed.
"Our algorithm uses linear programming to compute a virtual camera path that is optimized to recast videos and bursts as if they were filmed using stabilization equipment," Google explains how its video stabilization technology yields still backgrounds and cinematic pans that remove the shakiness.
Just like Motion Stills, Google Photos version 2.0 can also create looping videos, which go through Google's loop optimization that identifies ideal start and end points and gets rid of blurry frames. Google also claims that loop optimization can fix "pocket shots."
After saving a video loop, users can choose to export it either as an animated GIF or a video they can then share to everyone in their network, even ones who aren't on Apple devices, through messages or social media.
"In addition, this update includes the ability to sort photos in albums chronologically or by recently added," says Google in a blog post announcing Google Photos' new features. Google notes that this functionality is also available for Google Photos' web version and will soon come to Android.
The new version of the Google Photos app on iOS also allows users to choose a new thumbnail for faces in People. Also included are some performance improvements and tweaks that make content sharing to YouTube easier.
Should Motion Stills be uninstalled?
Google Photos wasn't the only one that got an update last Sept. 8, Thursday. Motion Stills also received some love from Google that updated the iOS app to version 1.2. And while its biggest features got cannibalized by Google Photos, Motion Stills has some neat new tricks that are native to it, for now at least.
Motion Stills version 1.2 is promised to be twice as fast. Google also addressed the apps' graphical glitches, which seem a lot based on the app's 2.5 star rating. However, version 1.2's biggest addition to Motion Stills is the ability to superimpose text over clips made from Live Photos.
