Among a flurry of yesterday’s announcements at the Google I/O developer conference, the Internet giant launched Google Photos, its brand spanking new photography service available across iOS [1] , Android [2] and on the web [3] . It offers unlimited storage ( with a  few caveats ) and has many other compelling features that give Apple’s iCloud Photo Library a fairly good run for its money.
To name but a few: world-class facial recognition that understands aging, sleek design, fast performance, unmatched search and machine intelligence, the ability to create a movie, collage or animated GIF in seconds and more.
The question is, will you be turning to Google Photos as a backup solution for the media you’ve amassed on your iOS device? Or, perhaps you’ll be sticking with Apple’s iCloud Photo Library even though it offers a meager five gigabytes of free cloud storage? Planning on using Google Photos alongside iCloud Photo Library, are we? Not a big fan of either service, you say?
Tell us in today’s poll!
Before you vote and jump straight to comments, consider the following caveats .
Apple gives each iCloud account five gigabytes of free cloud storage that can be used to back up your photo library using Photos for iOS and OS X and iCloud Photo Library.
Apple’s service always stores your photos and videos in the cloud in their full resolution, with an option to push media in device-optimized resolution to your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad to preserve storage space.
Google Photos offers unlimited cloud storage for photos and videos, but downscales image to sixteen megapixels and re-encodes videos to 1080p. So, if you have DSLR photos larger than 16MP, or shoot video in 4K, Google will keep them in the cloud in a reduced resolution.
The benefit: your photos will still look good in print but take up less space.
The downside: if you want to upload your media to Google Photos exactly as you captured itâ€"without compression artifacts due to downscalingâ€"you’ll have to do with just fifteen gigabytes of free storage.
Cast your vote below.
Of course, both Google and Apple offer paid storage upgrades.
With iCloud, you can purchase storage tiers in 20GB/200GB/500GB/1TB increments for $0.99/$3.99/$9.99/$19.99 per month, respectively.
Google sells 100GB/1TB storage upgrades for $1.99/$9.99 per month, with additional 10TB/20TB/30TB tiers costing $99/$199.99/$299.99 per month, respectively.
Google Photos for iPhone and iPad is free in the App Store [5] .
Which service do you use to back up your photos in the cloud?
We’re especially eager to hear from readers who swear by Dropbox, Flickr or OneDrive to preserve their memories. What’s your experience with these services been so far?
Tell us in comments.
Links
- ^ iOS (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Android (play.google.com)
- ^ the web (photos.google.com)
- ^ How does Google Photos compare to Apple’s Photos app and iCloud Photo Library? (www.wedgies.com)
- ^ Google Photos for iPhone and iPad is free in the App Store (itunes.apple.com)
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