Google is testing another powerful Google Photos upgrade.
Google is testing out an all-new ‘Memories’-based home page feature in the Google Photos app, according to a new report — and it’s a feature that I think could revolutionize the way people use the app.
The new feature, revealed by tipster Nail Sadykov of the unofficial, but popular, Google News Telegram group, includes screenshots of an updated interface that includes a new slider near the bottom of the screen.
Moving the slider from ‘All photos’ to ‘Memories’ switches from the regular timeline-based view into one that groups together photos according to themes and events instead. Examples given are ‘Trip to Kuluschi’ and ‘Under the Christmas tree’, each presented as a collage of image thumbnails in various shapes and sizes. Titles are automatically generated but can be changed by tapping a new ‘Edit’ button alongside the feed.
According to the report, tapping on a collage will open it full-screen, in the same way as if it had been opened from the carousel of Memories at the top of the regular feed. Sadly, the new feature is currently only an experiment and it is unknown when, or if, it will be made available to all users.
Google test a new 'Memories' feed in the Google Photos app.
If Google does roll out this update, and personally I hope it does, then it will open up a whole new way of using the app. While Google Photos does a good job of surfacing interesting content via the Memories feature, scrolling through the main chronological feed simply gives you every single photo and video you’ve saved. This gets boring very quickly — I don’t imagine many people feel compelled to pick up their phone to scroll back through the Google Photos timeline.
On the other hand, a curated feed containing only your most interesting images would surely prove much more engaging, especially when delivered in a format familiar to anyone used to scrolling through posts on social media. I can imagine future users turning to Google Photos to while away an idle moment in a way that simply doesn’t make sense today.
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see where Google takes this idea.
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