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Google Photos isn't playing nice with Samsung's new enhanced motion photos
If they were live photos, they'd be dead
Samsung has been rolling out the latest release of One UI, version 2.5, over the past few months. The update makes gesture navigation compatible with third-party launchers. It also adds support for motion photos with sound in them, but now it looks like there's a problem for users who store their images in Google Photos: live photos uploaded to the service show up as still images with the video and audio stripped out.
OneUI 2.5 update silently brings sound to Samsung's motion photos
You won't find it in the changelog, but it's there
Samsung's One UI 2.5 update comes with a small surprise. In addition to all the other named and unnamed improvements, it also brings audio recording to motion photos in Samsung's camera app. So not only will your photos include a short video if you have the feature enabled, now those clips have sound, too.
Motion Photos are an interesting addition to our photography tools. Tap the shutter button on your phone's camera, and it won't just save a pic, but also a short video around that moment. If you're photographing kids, pets, fast-moving objects, and other important moments, the animations can provide you with context that a static snap can't. But since each company has its own implementation of Motion Photos, some aren't compatible with each other or with Google Photos. That was the case for Samsung, but it's changing now.
OEMs tend to include custom camera software with their phones, but they're rarely anything to write home about. The imaging app HMD Global ships on its Nokia-branded devices is something of an exception, however. An update earlier this year revived the beloved Pro Camera mode from the old Lumia phones. The latest version (90.9.1123.20) comes with a host of new goodies.
Last year, Google Photos treated iPhone and iPad users to a new, vastly improved video editor. Heavily based on the Clips app originally developed by Fly Labs and acquired by Google in 2015, the basic controls for working with multiple source videos in a timeline were much easier to see and use than other editors of the time, including Apple's own iMovie app. It has been a little more than a year since it launched on iOS, and now the new movie editor is rolling out to Android users.
For many people, especially those of us here at Android Police, Google's various backup tools are an integral part of our daily workflow. Frankly, I'd have to entirely restructure how I do things without the convenience of Google Photos and Google Drive/Backup and Sync. For some, the combination of those two services isn't working as expected when it comes to Motion Photos, and backup synchronization to a desktop fails for those MVIMG-labeled images.
One of the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL's highlight features was Motion Photos. It's not something most of us really care about, and it's something I quickly disabled, but it can be fun for those with little ones. In keeping with one of our teardowns from about a week ago, Google has added the option to export a Motion Photo as a GIF to the Google Photos app.
We're getting a new version of Google Photos today, and breaking from the recent theme, this one actually has a few changes, though most of them don't stand out all that much. It's now easy to search for Motion Photos with a convenient search category. There are new notifications related to Photos Books, plus the settings to turn them off. And if anybody is auto-sharing photos with you, there's now a shortcut for setting up the same arrangement with them.
Motion Photos debuted alongside the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL as a direct competitor to Apple's Live Photos. These Motion Photos are saved by default whenever you take a picture, allowing you to catch a glimpse of the background while the photo was being taken. But until a day or two ago, these Motion Photos would remain in your Google Drive library, even if you'd already deleted them through Photos.
Google included a nifty (but not original) camera feature with the Pixel 2 and 2 XL called Motion Photos. When you snap a photo, each one has a short video clip attached. These are uploaded to Google Photos along with the still image, but what if you don't want everyone seeing those? Google Photos has an option to trim them out.
Google's new Motion Photos might have flown under your radar when it was announced last week in the context of the Google Clips, but that's not surprising—there was a lot going on. Since then, we've reached out to Google for more information and, combined with our own hands-on, we've got a good understanding of what goes into a Motion Photo.
Last year's Pixel was found to be one of the best all-around smartphone cameras. In fact, according to Google, Pixel users take 2x more photos than iPhones, on average. The camera tradition looks to have continued with the latest series of Pixel phones. Of course, you all know what we think about DxOMark. But even so, it appears that the Pixel 2 scored an incredible 98 overall, making it the best phone camera (again) it's ever reviewed.