Google Photos for iOS now lets you stabilize Live Photos

Google today said that it has updated its Google Photos app for iOS with the image stabilization technology that it first implemented in the Motion Stills iOS app it released earlier this year.

“Now, with the latest Google Photos update on iOS, you can make your Live Photos smoother and more shareable in just a tap,” the Google Photos team said in a Google+ post.

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By more shareable, Google means that Live Photos don’t transfer well to non-iOS devices. Google is getting over that hump by letting you save Live Photos as .MOV videos onto your iOS device’s camera roll. And they’re stabilized videos, importantly.

Android doesn’t have a Live Photos equivalent, so for now Google is enhancing a feature that’s exclusive to its competitor Apple’s mobile operating system.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Microsoft have developed software for stabilizing video that works on iOS devices, and the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus that Apple announced yesterday both have optical image stabilizers onboard. Plus the upcoming iOS 10 brings stabilization to Live Photos.

Today’s update to Google Photos for iOS also includes a way to sort the photos inside albums by oldest first, newest first, or recently added. The feature will come to Google Photos for Android and on the web. Google Photos, announced in May 2015, had more than 200 million monthly active users as of May 2016.

Meanwhile, Google has updated the standalone Motion Stills app for iOS to let users place text on top of their Live Photos-based videos.