Despite Google having its own competing mobile operating system in Android, it’s remarkable how prolific (and useful) its iOS app output is.
Last year we reviewed Google Photos and found its capability quite incredible – similar features eventually ended up in Apple’s stock Photos app, but Google’s might still have the edge. Read our review of Google Photos here. Google’s also released Allo, which demonstrated a Siri-rivaling virtual assistant (though without the integration Siri has, can anything be as good?) Read our review of that here.
Then later last year Google released Motion Stills – which directly addressed some of the key issues Apple had with Live Photos, adding image stablization and a gallery where you could watch and share Live Photos easily. We featured it in our best apps to enhance Live Photos roundup here.
And now, it appears that Google has done it again with PhotoScan. The idea is to turn your old physical photo collections into digital assets to store and view on devices. Of course, it’s not too difficult to keep a record or share old photos simply by using the iPhone’s camera to take a photo of them – so what does PhotoScan do that’s better than that? Here’s the key features:
– Get glare-free scans with an easy step-by-step capture flow
– Automatic cropping based on edge detection
– Straight, rectangular scans with perspective correction
– Smart rotation, so your photos stay right-side-up no matter which way you scan them
Another key element to the app is its integration with the aforementioned Google Photos – you can back up your scans for free using the app which will organize and make the scans searchable based on smart algorithms that can figure out what’s in the photo.
Download PhotoScan from the App Store for free now. You can also watch an introductory video below.