Here’s an interesting rumor coming out of Bloomberg this afternoon. It appears that Google wants to separate their Photos app a bit more from Google+. While the Google+ Photos service is already kinda separate but not really, it looks like Google has big plans for it. According to the report from Bloomberg, the service would be rebranded, and would work for those that aren’t using Google+. Currently, you’d need to use Google+ to use Google+ Photos, which is a sore spot for some. As you do get unlimited photo backup, which is amazing, but you do need to sign up with Google+ and not everyone wants to.
Many of you may remember Vic Gundotra, who was the VP of Google+ until he left the company earlier this year. He was big with photos and photography. Which is why Google+ is so photography central, and brings in so many photographers. It looks like his “vision” is living on with the company and the Google+ product though.
“Over here in our darkroom, we’re always developing new ways for people to snap, share and say cheese,” Google said in a statement that was emailed to Bloomberg this afternoon. While not commenting specifically on this story, they did say they are always developing new ways for users to take pictures and share them. Google+ already has plenty of great Photo editing tools, and there’s also Auto-Awesome. Something that no other social network really has. Sure Intagram and Twitter both have filters, but that’s about it. You can’t turn your pictures into an animated gif or have it snowing on your pictures. But with Google+ you can.
So we’ll have to keep an eye out on this one and see what happens here. We’ll probably see more at Google I/O next year, as this just seems like something they’d announce there.