Google Photos is not your ordinary image and video gallery app, especially considering the plethora of editing and AI features it offers. Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen evidence of video editor upgrades coming to the app, while Google has also broadly rolled out its revamped image editor interface announced back in May. We’re now getting an early look at another upcoming feature of Google Photos.
Courtesy of version 7.40.0.790840830 of Google Photos, app expert AssembleDebug enabled a “React” button for images and videos in shared albums. In its current form, users can react to photos or videos with the “Like” button. However, it looks like Google wants to make interactions a little more intuitive by introducing preset reactions (via Android Authority).
Tapping the React button, which replaces the Like option, pulls up five commonly used emojis, including the existing red heart, a laughing face, a smiling face with heart-shaped eyes, a party popper, and clapping hands. We don’t know if Google intends to expand the selection of emojis you can react with, so for the time being, these appear to be the only choices.
Designed to make your interactions a touch better
Current (left) vs upcoming
Meanwhile, any reactions to the contents of the shared album will appear in the “Comments” section as individual comments. It’s also worth noting that any photos you have liked in the past will continue to appear as before. New reactions will appear next to the user’s profile image in the Comments window, as shown in the fourth image above.
It’s unclear whether this is intentional or something that will be modified when the feature is ready to roll out to the public. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait too long to find out.
In a separate development, Android Authority found that Google Photos also defaults to the yet-to-be-launched “Create” tab upon startup, which was revealed by Google a couple of weeks ago. This aligns with Google’s announcement that it would roll out widely in August. Create will be home to multiple tools, including AI offerings like photo-to-video and the recently added Remix, which lets you transform your existing photos into sketches, anime, comics, or 3D animations.
