Google have offered nearly all of their features for free in the past with users mostly just having to pay for storage. Now it looks like Google is toying with the idea of charging users for at least one feature that is currently free — Color Pop.
Editor in Chief at XDA Developers, Mishaal Rahman, has reported that not only did they find in an APK teardown that there would be a Google One paywall for photo editing features but he heard from a reader that it is already present. For this user Color Pop sits locked behind a Google One membership.
The screenshots captured by the reader show that to unlock more of the editing features such as Color Pop you need to sign up to Google One. Mishaal tested this himself on an account which does not have a Google One subscription but found Color Pop was still free so it is unclear just how widespread this new paywall is.
At this stage it is also unclear just which features Google is planning on hiding behind the paywall but with them continually expanding the editing features of Google Photos it may be quite extensive. It appears that any level of membership will unlock the photo editing features.
Google Photos is currently one of the best apps that Google provides for Android — not only the free storage but also the editing features and this change, if it sticks, is extremely disappointing.
We have not seen the new paywall on any of our devices , let us know in the comments if you do and what you think of it. Would you pay for a Google One subscription just to get the advanced Google Photos editing features?
Because I use (free) g suite it probably wouldn’t work regardless of whether I’d like to pay for it or not
The version I have doesn’t have ‘colour pop’, it just has ‘enhance’. The Australian and American versions are obviously different.
Meh.
I pay for Google One for full res photo backups anyway.
Hell no!
No no no no no noooo