14 DAY TRIAL // As expected, Google had quite a few announcements to make at its Google+ event, which you can watch in full bellow. And, as expected, none of them were particularly groundbreaking.
Still, it's nice to see Google focus on what's working. The main updates were centered around Hangouts, which is evolving into a catch-all communication service, and Google+ Photos, which are getting more and more features.
On the communication front, Hangouts for Android now works with SMS messages as well. This has been a long time coming and, considering that the Hangouts app will replace the regular SMS app in Android 4.4 KitKat, the announcement is hardly surprising.
Photos are getting a big update but, generally, more of the same. iOS users can now upload their photos automatically, auto enhance can now be dialed down if you want your pics to look more like how you uploaded them, and there's a new Snapseed filter.
More interesting are the Auto Awesome additions; there are now three new effects which come in handy for different types of photos and videos. Action takes a number of photos and creates a strobe effect, Eraser removes people or cars that are ruining your shots, and Movie creates a highlight reel from videos and photos and even adds a soundtrack.
The changes are evolutionary, but they add up to something great. Google is taking something that's working, Hangouts and Photos, and improving on it. That's probably the right strategy since it's clear to the company as well that it will never be able to compete with Facebook.
While Google wants to add more and more users to its social network, it’s content with getting people involved with just the things it can offer that others can't or that it can do better.
There's no question that Google+ Photos offers the best photo experience on the web, at least among the social networks. There may be services with more features or more advanced tweaking capabilities, but Google+ Photos is the best for the average user who has hundreds of thousands of photos.
As for Hangouts, the group video chat feature is still the best on the market, at least at the price of "free," and the mobile expansion can only help. There are simpler or more specialized services out there, but none that offer everything that Hangouts provides. Of course, building everything but the kitchen sink into a product is not necessarily a good thing, but we'll have to wait and see how it works out for Google.
