Google Photos gets a free design update that could be confusing

Google Photos is the default photo app for Android users and one of Google’s best apps, opening the door not only to your images, but many of the AI-powered editing features too. That’s one of the things that makes it popular for iPhone users too. But there’s a change coming that could leave people confused.

Photography is one of the big battlegrounds when comparing the best smartphones, but few take the time to think about how important the gallery experience is. That’s where Google Photos comes in, not only sorting and showcasing photos, but giving you editing skills and syncing across your Google account.

That’s why Google Photos is constantly being tweaked and this latest change might leave some confused.

In the current version of the app, there’s a Memories tab at the bottom. This groups together photos like a scrapbook, using AI to suggest titles. It’s a really easy way to create and share an album.

According to 9to5Google, the new update will change Memories into Moments and move it into the Collections tab, where it will sit alongside People and Pets, Documents and others. The big change that this will bring is that the home screen of Google Photos will then have three tabs across the bottom – Photos, Collections, Search – rather than four. This will make it look cleaner.

However, some might find that moving Memories into Collections (and changing its name) means they never open it.

Of course, Google includes a carousel at the top of Google Photos with a collection of memories in it – as well as sending you reminders about things that happened in the past – so you’ll probably be well-served with reminiscence anyway.

Google Photos’ popularity comes down to a couple of things. Firstly, the searching has been very powerful for a very long time. Not only can it identify people (and will ask you to confirm if it’s the same person), but it will do the same thing with pets, meaning you can instantly call up photos of your cat or dog.

Searching goes further, allowing you to search for a location, activity or object too: bought a new hat? You can search for hat and all your hat pictures appear.

The syncing to your account means you don’t have to worry about losing your phone, but the free storage it once offered is now long gone. Being able to access your photos instantly online is great, but in recent times, it’s been the advent of AI that’s given Google Photos prominence.

Google Photos is essential to the on-device editing that you get through Magic Eraser, but also the power of Magic Editor and Video Boost, which both use cloud processing based around Google Photos.

The new Google Photos software has been pushed to iPhone and we’re expecting it to land on Android soon.