Picasa will be retired in favour of Google Photos
After much speculation, today Google has finally announced that it is officially retiring Picasa so that it can better focus itself on Google Photos.
One of the main reasons for the new focus is that Google Photos allows for a better experience across multiple platforms and, therefore, allows the internet giant to combine its desktop and mobile experiences into one product, instead of having one for mobile and another for desktop.
The shutdown of Picasa does not mean everything you’ve done on it will be lost though. The company will be rolling out these changes on May 1, so you still have plenty of time to access the service and it’s features. The desktop application will cease being supported on March 15 though, which means that Google will stop updating it, but it’ll still be usable.
Obviously, in an ideal situation, Google would like all of its Picasa users to switch over to Google Photos, but it understands that that’s highly unlikely. So, for those of you who do not wish to make the switch, Google will provide a tool that’ll allow you to access all of your Picasa content, even after the service is retired – you just won’t be able to upload new stuff.
If you have photos or videos in a Picasa Web Album, the easiest way to access, edit or share most of the content is to simply login into Google Photos, as all your photos and albums will already be there.
As for developers and third-party clients, some functions of the Picasa API will be retired, though none of this will come into effectiveness until May 1. So if you wish to continue using the service, it’ll work just as normal, and, if you wish to switch to Google Photos, you’ll be able to upload content just as you would through Picasa.
What do you think of the shutdown? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: | Picasa Blog |
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Via: | Android Central |
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Photo Credits: | PC Spezialist |
