These days, we're shooting more and more pictures with the better and better quality cameras on our phones. That's a very good thing, as long as you have storage space, but storage space is one of those things that you have at the beginning and then you don't, so it's a consumable.
What can be done?
Of course, if you foresee disaster, you can buy a phone with 128GB of internal storage, but usually this is always an afterthought, so it's out. Then there's MicroSD expandability, if it's there, of course. There is a better solution, namely the Google Photos cloud service.
It was mentioned in last year's tests, but I didn't go into more detail about what it is and how it works. Google Photos is a cloud service where you can upload your photos and videos. We can access them on all our devices that are associated with the same Google account, and they can also be viewed on smart displays, or let's say Smart Display devices, Chromecast-enabled TVs, smartphones, sticks, and Google Home devices.
That's a great thing, but normally it would cost a lot, wouldn't it?
But yes, Google does have a deal for us: it converts photos to 16 megapixel images and saves videos in 1080p, but the only limit to how many of these images or videos can be uploaded to the cloud is your imagination.
Of course, you can also save them in their original quality, but then you'll have the same capacity as your Google Drive storage, so you'll be using up Drive. So it works regardless
Why is it worth it for them?
Google knows everything about us, so I assume they use them for some algorithm to improve either the app or the search engine. Make no mistake, this is not about our extra blurry pictures taken on our 2007 holiday being looked at by Auntie Gizi, the cleanliness manager at Google HQ.
Programok elemezhetik a képeket, amit egyébként meg is tesznek – ezzel azonban nekünk segítenek, a Google Fotók ugyanis összeállít kis videókat, animációkat, és Insta-sztori jellegű emlékeket mutat (ez történt 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… éve), és még a rossz fényviszonyok közt lőtt fotográfiák megmentésére is tesz javaslatot.
A keresőóriás már így is mindent tud rólunk, tehát emiatt aggódni szerintem már igazán felesleges, főként, ha a Facebooknak is engedélyezted a helyadatokat, csak azért, hogy a környéken lévő WiFi hálózatok jelszavát felfedje a közösségi hálózatok “feketebáránya”. Cseles megoldás, nemde? :P
In summary
A Google Fotók segítségével ingyenesen és könnyedén menthetjük fényképeinket, videóinkat, melyek közt egyébként remekül lehet keresni hely, idő, és akár személyek alapján is. Ennek ára lehet a privacy-mérő negatív irányba mozdulása, azonban szerintem ennél sokkal többen sokkal veszélyesebb alkalmazásoknak adják el a lelküket pl. TikTok… így hacsak nem vagy tagja egy 5G tornyokat égető mozgalomnak, vess rá egy pillantást ;)
Update: 2021.01.17.
With the end of unlimited, the offer is not as attractive as it used to be, and the price we pay for our data is quite high, so if you care about privacy and don't want to be stolen by the big tech companies, it's worth considering alternative solutions and spending a minimum amount of money.
Google Photos can still be a great solution for storing and syncing certain less sensitive photos.
