A new feature here. A little tweak there. That's the way we like our Google Photos updates. The latest, version 1.3, brings in a bit of both. Let's get to it.

What's New

Google has already posted the changelog for this release. Here it is.

What's New:

  • Google Photos can recognize collages/animations that Google Camera creates
  • You are now able to login to Google Photos as a Plus Page
  • You can reorder content in albums
  • You can now trim videos to be included in movies
  • You can see a new timeline user interface for Movie editing

In case you find some of the items on this list a tad ambiguous, here are some pictures to help clarify things. No, I'm not touching on all of them.

This is what you see when you tap the option to log in to Google Photos using a Google+ page available in the sidebar.

As for reordering the photos in albums, the process is nothing short of awkward. You can't just hold an image down and start dragging. Instead you have to tap down on the pencil in the action bar, hold down on a photo, and then move it around.

After you add a video to a Movie, you can trim clips down to a desired length. These three screens guide you through the process.

Click the third icon in the first screenshot and the scissors in the second to trim videos.

A few tweaks didn't make the changelog. An "Edit in Snapseed" command now appears in the drop-down menu when you're viewing an image, but only if you have Snapseed installed (edit: as some readers have pointed out, this option was already available). Also, the Settings screen used to have a toggle for assistant cards with the title "Suggest new creations". Now there is a sub-screen with an option called "New creations" and a single toggle on the page. This isn't a functional change, but the altered organization suggests that there are more settings to come.

Download

The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing app. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push this download to your devices, which can take days, download and install it just like any other APK.

File Name: com.google.android.apps.photos-1.3.0.100949119-65564-minAPI14.apk

Version: 1.3.0.100949119 (65564)

MD5: 037a551b4f451dcda36f5dec2c9da596

Thanks: Kyle Salewski