Google's Motion Stills app has until now been only available on iOS, which is decidedly odd considering that it should have been available on Android from the get-go.
It makes sense for it to be on Apple's platform, however, because the app creates GIFs and short videos with the help of the Live Photos function on iOS. Exactly why Google failed to bring it to its core audience remains a mystery — but no matter. Google is finally making Motion Stills available on Android.
Google Rolls Out Motion Stills On Android
Now available to download for free on Google's Play Store, Motion Stills lets users capture short videos and turn them into several things. Users can make dramatic cinemagraphs, which are photos that contain dynamic moving elements; "sweeping cinematic pans," thanks to the app's advanced stabilization and rendering tech; or looping GIFs and short movies.
Motion Stills: What's New
The Android version contains a few updates, including a new recording interface that enables the users to tap for a quick snapshot or condense a longer recording via the Fast Forward feature. Motion Stills is powered by a sophisticated algorithm that tries to polish video by removing accidental shakes or any sudden movements that can ruin the fluidity of a footage. Users can capture video even without an internet connection.
According to Google's blog post, developers redesigned the app's streaming pipeline in a way that it processes each frame of a video during recording.
"By computing intermediate motion metadata, we are able to immediately stabilize the recording while still performing loop optimization over the full sequence." All that fancy tech talk just means users shouldn't have to wait for their GIFs to generate.
You Might See The Tech In Motion Stills Be Applied To Other Google Apps
With Motion Stills now ported over to Android, Google might do more experiments on short-form video. It might also consider implementing Motion Stills's underlying tech to its other camera apps.
Google Photos is one such app, and even now it's already packed with stellar features such as automatic backups, easier sharing methods, and a heck of a lot more. Adding motion and stabilization capabilities would make it even more useful, surely.
GIFs have become more prevalent in recent years thanks to the steep upswing of memes. You can probably find a GIF for almost every situation there is. Motion Stills is Google's way of making a tool that creates GIFs widely available to many users, which now thankfully includes those running Android.
