New Inbox Features, Unlimited Photo Storage + All You Need To Know About The Just Concluded Goolge I/O Event

The Google I/O event held this week with announcements like its own mobile payment platform dubbed Android Pay but other products/services were announced. Here’s what you need to know.

The one time invite only Inbox app is now opened to all. You can get the Inbox app here. This app automatically organises your email into groups based on your content.

So say you get a couple of emails from social networking sites, promotions and maybe official emails, Inbox automatically organises for you so that you can prioritise replies. One important feature it has is that it takes contents from your emails and groups them into a “Bundle” for easy access. So maybe you are about to embark on a educational course. All the mails you receive from that institution are put into a Bundle and this helps when you receive so many emails from different institutions besides the other avalanche of emails you receive daily. So what are the new updates to Inbox?

1. that reminders will now also sync between Google Keep and Inbox.

1. you can recall emails within 10 seconds of sending it (this feature can come in handy when you hit send either in error or when you need to edit an email before sending)
2. you can have a custom signature just like you have in any email account only this time, it will sync across devices excluding your Gmail account

Google also made an announcement concerning it Hangouts. There was an update to Hangouts Chrome app with a totally new interface. In a post by Mayur Kamat, you can see the new interface from the Chrome store but the new interface might take a while to hit everyone. When this is fully rolled out we’ll share this with you but you can check it out here

Perhaps the big announcement at the event was that Google will now free unlimited storage for photos. You can now back up to 16MP for photos and 1080p for videos for free on the Google cloud. iOS and Android can start using this service from now as announced by Google. That said there are paid storage plans as well for those who wish to store their files in its original form. You can see those plans here. Smart photos is fast becoming a trend with Yahoo’s Flickr announcing that it now has a tool to tell you what’s in picture.

Part of the statement reads below;

A home for all your photos and videos
Google Photos gives you a single, private place to keep a lifetime of memories, and access them from any device. They’re automatically backed up and synced, so you can have peace of mind that your photos are safe, available across all your devices. 

And when we say a lifetime of memories, we really mean it. With Google Photos, you can now backup and store unlimited, high-quality photos and videos, for free. We maintain the original resolution up to 16MP for photos, and 1080p high-definition for videos, and store compressed versions of the photos and videos in beautiful, print-quality resolution. For all the storage details, visit our help center.

Organize and bring your moments to life 
Google Photos automatically organizes your memories by the people, places, and things that matter. You don’t have to tag or label any of them, and you don’t need to laboriously create albums. When you want to find a particular shot, with a simple search you can instantly find any photo—whether it’s your dog, your daughter’s birthday party, or your favorite beach in Santa Barbara. And all of this auto-grouping is private, for your eyes only.

The app can also help you quickly enhance photos and combine them in new ways to help you relive your life’s moments. In one tap, get instant adjustments tuned to the photo’s color, lighting, and subject to make each photo look its best. Press the “+” button to create your own collages, animations, movies with soundtracks, and more.

If you swipe to the left, you’ll open the Assistant view, where we’ll suggest new things made with your photos and videos, such as a collage or a story based on a recent trip you took. After previewing the creation, you can choose to keep, edit, or discard it.

Easily share and save what matters 
With Google Photos, you have the choice to share your photos and videos however you want across any service you choose, from Hangouts to Twitter to WhatsApp. But even then, it’s still remarkably difficult to share a lot of photos just with friends and family and keep the ones shared with you—it usually involves a lot of downloading and re-uploading across a number of different services. We wanted to make sharing much simpler and more reliable. 

Photo credit: Google