Google Photos - unlimited photo and video storage for iOS

Google Photos enables you to back up your photos, as well as organize, search, and edit your images and videos right from Google's cloud storage. Photos also helps you transform your images into striking collages, slideshows, and movies.

Pros

Photo backup: Google Photos offers unlimited photo and video storage in Google Drive when you select the high-quality option (full-resolution photos up to 16 megapixels; HD videos up to 1080p), which is adequate for sharing with friends over social media. If compression is not your thing, preserve your high-res images in their original size, but the Drive space will come out of the standard 15GB of free storage that comes with every Google account.

Great navigation: In our tests, we found our way around with ease. We loved glancing through photos by Day, Month, or Compact; as well as the Comfortable option, which blows up the photos for easier viewing. Pinch to zoom in on photos; press and hold to select more photos more quickly; and swipe between different collection types, such as Photos and Movies.

Assistant: Assistant creates movies, collages, and more from your photos and videos. Keep the ones you like; swipe right to dismiss the ones you don't.

DIY presentations: Press the + button to create your own album, collage, animation, story with descriptions, or montage movie with cool filters and music.

Works on all platforms: Sync your iPhone or iPad with your Google Photos library to search, edit, delete, and share from any device.

Easy sharing: Besides sharing over social media and messaging apps, the share feature lets you send a batch of photos with a link. Just tap, hold, and drag to select a group of photos. Hit the share button, and then tap Copy Link to Clipboard. Paste the generated link into a text or an email, and your recipient will see the photos just by clicking on them, even if they don't have Google Photos on their device.

Privacy-minded: Under Settings, you can remove geo location in items shared by link, so no one on the receiving end can access your whereabouts.

SEE: Keep Your Photos Safe in the Cloud with the Best Online Photo Storage

Cons

Poor search: Although Google Photos allegedly groups photos with precise face-matching technology for easy discovery, we never found this to be the case in testing. Keyword searches were not very reliable, even when we added descriptions to our photos. We expected more from the search giant. This is where customizable tags -- already available in Picasa -- would be helpful.

Minor glitches: Google Photos crashed the first time we attempted to create an animation. The Help section had links that, when clicked, led to pages that could not be found.

Bottom Line

Google Photos is a great organization and presentation tool, enabling you to merge your photos and videos in one easy-to-find place. Hopefully search functionality will improve soon.

�??�?�¢?�??�?�¢ Redesigned Albums tab for faster navigation

�??�?�¢?�??�?�¢ Performance improvements