Google is giving its Photos app a bit of love for the season in the form of three big new features, just in time for Valentine’s day. Users can now create their own themed movies by choosing a theme, where the app used to periodically craft these on its own with no input from the user. Users can also create shared albums, which can be contributed to, and of course viewed, by anybody that they’re shared with. Finally, Google is rolling out the ability to order a photo book made from your own Google Photos content, with prices starting at $9.99. These features should be available now in all versions of Google Photos, including the web interface, iOS, and Android.
Themed movies can be created by going to the Assistant menu in the Photos interface, then under the Create New heading, selecting Movie. This will present you with a list of themes and motifs to choose from, such as “They Grow Up So Fast.” Simply pick one, and the app will create your movie while you wait, and let you know when it’s finished. The photo books have their own heading, and can take the form of recommended books, or user-made books. They’re priced according to how many photos are in them and what type of binding is selected. Shared albums, meanwhile, work just like normal albums, except that they can have full editing privileges shared in much the same way as Google Drive files.
These new features have some pretty obvious uses for the upcoming holiday. The shared albums can be made jointly between loved ones, allowing them to surprise each other with shared memories. Photo books, meanwhile, make a great gift. Finally, themed movies can capture a couple’s best moments over the years, making for a lovely trip down memory lane. Naturally, all of these features can be used for other reasons, such as business collaboration and personal pleasure, among others. These changes also fit in with Google’s running theme with Photos updates, namely making the app more personal for users and taking it beyond a mere cloud-based photo repository.