Which of these apps is better to trust to sort and save all of your memories?
By Tobias Estrella
With our reliance on our cell phones for communication has also lead to reliance for storage. Smartphones have awesome cameras we use to capture memories within the moment in high-quality images and videos. However, as this data builds up, it becomes more and more difficult to find certain videos. Technology giants Apple and Google both have their own universal apps that sort your photos and videos not only by date, but also by person, event, colors, and more. Which should you use to keep your important moments?
Both apps rely on the sorting method of albums. Apples sort in videos, selfies, live photos, portraits, slo-mos, screenshots, and so on. Google photos have fewer categories with more broad descriptions; people, places, things. In the main photos menu, Apple and Google sort photos by exact day, month, and year. When looking for a specific date, Apple gives you all of the units of time for you to narrow down your search. Google has a scroll bar on the side that scrolls through photos and tell you when the photos are from. Google’s method is significantly faster, but Apple’s feels more immersive since as you go through previews are shown of highlights.
These apps also both integrate in their respective artificial assistants, Google Assistant and Siri. This artificial intelligence allows the user to search for certain people through facial recognition, tag a photo to its location, and extract text. Apple has the upper hand here in that it also includes categories, like swimming, beaches, snow, or sports. Using my own photo libraries, both apps were able to identify people with surprising accuracy, even recognizing them in low resolution and old photos.
Where the apps differ most is within editing and sharing. Editing photos in Google has more automated options, such as filters or intelligent corrections, whereas Apple’s contains more sophisticated adjustments. Google Photos also focuses on sharing photos through other apps and the cloud. You can put the photo to nearly any app that can take photos. Apple, on the other hand, retains you within the Apple ecosystem, such as Apple Mail or iMessage. This would be a disadvantage except the focus is more on sharing between devices rather than sharing between apps. AirDrop is a quick and efficient way to send and receive full quality images in what seems like an instant through magic.
Overall, Google’s Photos app is more universal. You can access it anywhere at any time, no matter the operating system or device. It is all connected through your google account. However, Apple’s Photos has more useful features for users that have plenty of Apple products and plan on sharing mostly with other Apple users. All in all, these two are the best options for sharing photos with friends, storing pictures of homework for school, or sorting funny memes.