Google has placed quite a bit of focus on photography with its apps in the past, using Auto Awesome enhancements on Google+ photos, easy GIF creation, releasing a Photospheres app for iPhone, and more. Now it looks like Google may have another photo project that’s focused on food.
A new report from El Androide Libre [Google Translate] suggests that Google might be prepping a new service called Tablescape that’s centered on taking and sharing photos of food. The source of the rumor suggests that Tablescape is a service that’s separate from Google+, despite its Google+-like user interface, and the tipster sent along some purported screenshots that give us a peek at the app.
The first screenshot shows a “Tablescape” app inside a folder on an Android 5.0 device. The app’s icon looks like the Google Camera icon, but with a grapefruit in its lens. The app itself has floating action buttons and sections like Weekly Challenge, Suggestion of the Day, and Dish of the Day. The app itself appears to have an attractive, Material Design-style UI that fits in nicely with Android 5.0.
While this report is still very much unconfirmed, there are parts of it that add credibility. As noted by Android Police, Jessica Pfund is a Google employee, and her name appears in these images. The photo that she took is tagged at a real place called Eric Kayser, a bakery in Paris. Pfund is also a member of the Google+ community called The Plate, which is focused on sharing food photos. Several of the other shots contained in this leak can be found in The Plate as well, suggesting that Google is simply piping content from that Google+ community into Tablescape as a way to test its app.
Food photos are a big deal. For example, as of this writing, the hashtag “#foodstagram” has 5,033,863 posts on Instagram and the simple hashtag “#food” has 155,211,902 posts. Some folks may hate food photos, but there are clearly a lot of people that like them, too, and Tablescape could be Google’s way to target those food photographers and give them a way to share their images with other like-minded foodies. Now we just have to wait and see if Tablescape will make it out of Google and onto our phones.
