{"id":944,"date":"2020-11-07T02:20:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-07T02:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1327117"},"modified":"2020-11-07T02:20:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-07T02:20:03","slug":"google-photos-may-lock-some-new-features-behind-a-paywall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=944","title":{"rendered":"Google Photos may lock some new features behind a paywall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/plugged?filter_last=1&amp;fit=1280%2C640&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2020%2F06%2Fgoogle-photos-whatsapp-backup.jpg&amp;signature=9d78b2ddb29808ff52b5f4e063dc08be\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>If you ask me, Google Photos is Mountain View\u2019s best piece of software since Gmail. It offers offers useful organization and editing features that tend to be easier and more effective than those on other apps. But according to a report by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.xda-developers.com\/google-photos-5-18-confirms-premium-editing-features-google-one-members\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><em>XDA<\/em><\/a>, which dug into the code of the app\u2019s latest update, Google is planning on keeping some of its best upcoming features behind a paywall. Namely, a Google One subscription.<\/p>\n<p><em>XDA<\/em>\u2018s report notes that Photos v5.18 includes four strings of code pointing to the change:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cAs a Google One member, you get access to extra editing features\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cGet extra editing features with a Google One membership\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cUnlock this feature and more with a Google One membership\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cUnlock more editing features and {storage_amount} of storage with a Google One membership\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So it\u2019s pretty clear that Google is considering putting some features behind a paywall. In fact, the company indirectly confirmed it\u2019s already started doing so.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after the above report, An XDA reader noted that Google had begun locking its \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.xda-developers.com\/google-photos-tests-locking-color-pop-behind-a-google-one-paywall\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">color pop<\/a>\u2018 feature behind a Google One paywall:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"8.7009646302251\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Shortly after we published this article, a reader informed us that Google Photos&#8217; Color Pop feature is locked behind a Google One paywall. I reached out to Google for confirmation but haven&#8217;t heard back yet. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/99dsMWcKe1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/99dsMWcKe1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NOWepbpXkH\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/NOWepbpXkH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MishaalRahman\/status\/1324778122697494528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">November 6, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>However, in a statement to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2020\/11\/6\/21553303\/google-photos-editing-features-color-pop-one-subscription\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Verge<\/em><\/a>, Google said the feature is only paywalled on photos that have no inherent depth information:<\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"13\">\n<p>In Google Photos, color pop is a feature that continues to be available for anyone to use, at no cost, for photos with depth information (such as portrait mode). As a part of an ongoing roll out that began earlier this year, Google One members can apply the feature to even more photos of people, including those without depth information.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In other words, it appears Google isn\u2019t locking the feature, but rather making it available on more photos with this update \u2014 you\u2019ll just have to pay for it.<\/p>\n<p>Google\u2019s image processing AI is state of the art, and it\u2019s a big part of why the company is able to offer one of the best portrait mode features on a smartphone camera without requiring extensive depth information from the hardware itself.<\/p>\n<p>The color pop feature similarly requires depth information, so it\u2019s usually available on photos taken in portrait mode. It seems subscribers will be able to use Google\u2019s AI to generate those depth maps and enable the feature to work on any old regular portrait instead.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m of two minds on this. As long as Google continues to offer new free features to everyday users, I don\u2019t particularly mind the company having a \u2018premium\u2019 tier. After all, I pay for a monthly Adobe subscription for Lightroom, but I use Google Photos much more often in my day-to-day photography.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Google will have to make these paywalled features particularly compelling \u2014 color pop certainly won\u2019t cut it \u2014 so I\u2019m curious to see what the company comes up with in the future. An added focus on professional users could make it Photos more useful, though the app has a long way to go if it wants to offer competition for more robust image-editing applications.<\/p>\n<p><i>For more gear, gadget, and hardware news and reviews, follow Plugged on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/plugged\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/flipboard.com\/@thenextweb\/plugged-54nihknvy\">Flipboard<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-post-pubDate\"> Published November 7, 2020 \u2014 02:20 UTC <\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/plugged\/2020\/11\/07\/google-photos-may-lock-some-new-features-behind-a-paywall\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you ask me, Google Photos is Mountain View\u2019s best piece of software since Gmail. It offers offers useful organization and editing features that tend to be easier and more effective than&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}