At Google’s third annual Google for Nigeria event today, the search giant’s showcase of new services included the unveiling of a slimmed-down, lightweight alternative to its popular Google Photos app called Gallery Go that seems to have been designed specifically with users in developing markets in mind.
In essence, the service is a photo gallery designed to work offline and lets machine learning automatically organize and touch up photos similar to how the same thing is done within the Google Photos app.
Launching today, Google explained that the new service can help first-time smartphone owners “easily find, edit and manage photos” without the need for high-speed internet access or cloud backup.
Photos are automatically stored and organized to help these users easily find selfies, keep track of important documents or remember a favorite restaurant dish. And all of that’s done without the user needing to label photos, a benefit that Google Photos users are certainly already familiar with. Same with the new service’s auto-enhance feature, which produces instant fixes for photos and provides a variety of filters to get a new look, as well as letting the user easily crop and rotate a photo.
Best of all, Gallery Go was designed to work even when the user is offline, and it only takes up 10 MB of space on a phone.
“Gallery Go is designed for people who don’t have a reliable internet connection,” Google Nigeria country director Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor explained in a blog post today. “It brings many of the best features of Google Photos on device, to help you find, edit and manage your photos even when you’re offline.
“The app keeps your photos automatically organized and make your snaps look their best with easy editing tools such as one-tap auto-enhance. The app is only 10MB to keep your phone light and fast, so that you can spend more time capturing memories.”
Gallery Go is available in the Google Play Store for devices running Android 8.1 or higher, though Google says some of the app’s features like organizing photos aren’t available in all countries yet.
