Google Photos head clarifies Google+ Photos “shutdown” announcement

You would think that an announcement about the shutdown of one of the lesser used (or so we thought) Google products would not be met with much protest. But apparently, there were some folks who were upset over the fact that Google+ Photos was being “closed” and that users were strongly encouraged to migrate their files into the newly launched Google Photos, which is a much superior photo backup cloud service. Google Photos head had to make clarifications about what the announcement actually meant.

So the initial announcement was quite confusing, as some people thought that Google+ was actually closing down for good. Google Photos head Anil Sabharwal published another announcement on his page, clarifying that it was only the private photo management component of Google+ that they were shutting down. This means you can still upload and share photos and videos on your Google+ page. It also means that all your previous posts that had photos and videos will not be affected, including the comments and +1s that you received.

The change is actually happening on the private photo management functions of Google+. This means that backing up, editing, creating, and managing your private albums will not be done on the social network anymore, but through Google Photos. That is, if you still want Google to store and manage your private photos. Sharing to other apps will also be done through the new service, but sharing within Google+ is still status quo.

So, let’s hope this announcement has cleared up things for Google+ users (and for us as well). Just like with any major change in digital services that we’re used to (Facebook should know), there will be resistance and complaints. But if Google shows us that this is really for the better of users, then people will eventually accept and even appreciate Google Photos (as some already do).

SOURCE: +Anil Sabharwal