Looks like Google doesn’t feel like waiting until Wednesday to roll out its Android app updates this week.
Just a day after pushing a significant Gmail app update that brought Save to Google Drive support and more, Google has announced that it’s now rolling out a major update to its Google+ app for Android. The full list of changes is as follows:
- Auto Awesome Stories now combine your photos, videos and the places you visit into beautiful travelogues.
- Auto Awesome Movies are now available on Android, iOS and the web, so lots more people will receive highlight reels of their photos and videos.
- You can now create animated GIFs and photobooth-style images on demand. Just tap the new plus button in Photos, and select either Motion or Mix.
- Really big photo libraries are now supported on Android, so you can access your many thousands of photos quickly and easily.
- You can now browse your entire photo library, as well as your highlights, by date. Just drag the new scroll bar to move forwards or backwards in time.
- Profiles now display total content views on both Android and the web. (You can choose to show or hide this number via settings.)
- A new navigation menu makes it easier to switch between your favorite circles and communities, as well as other places in the app.
- It’s a lot easier to share content from your phone or tablet. To give it a try, just tap the new pencil icon at the bottom right of the stream.
- The app menu now slides away as you move down the stream, letting posts fill the entire screen.
Google went into a bit more depth about two of the biggest parts of this update, Auto Awesome Stories and Auto Awesome Movies. Auto Awesome Stories can automatically sift through your photos, videos and the places you’ve visited to create a sort of memory book of your experiences. You can find an example of an Auto Awesome Story right here. Stories will be available on Android and the web this week and it will hit iOS “soon.”
Meanwhile, Auto Awesome Movies is more focused on specific events, like a birthday party. This feature will gather your photos and videos and automatically create a “highlight reel” that includes effects, transitions and even a soundtrack. An example of Auto Awesome Movies is embedded below. This feature is hitting Android, iOS and the web today.
Even if you’re not into Auto Awesome Stories and Movies, this Google+ update is a significant one. Users with large photo libraries will enjoy being able to quickly browse through their shots, and sharing content is much made much easier for all.
You can find the Google+ for Android app in the Play Store right here.
Via Official Google Blog, +DaveBesbris, Google Play: Google+
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