Google has released an update to its Motion Stills app that lets users create moving text effects for inclusion in their videos.

Motion Stills is designed to create unique GIFs from Live Photo images captured with the iPhone 7, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE. The app was released earlier this year and its main features were subsequently integrated into Google Photos for iOS.

googlemotionstills
The update means that users can add motion-tracked text overlays to their high-resolution videos and fun gifs, as described and demonstrated in the company's research blog post.

We've added motion text so you can create moving text effects, similar to what you might see in movies and TV shows, directly on your phone. With Motion Text, you can easily position text anywhere over your video to get the exact result you want. It only takes a second to initialize while you type, and a tracks at 1000 FPS throughout the whole Live Photo, so the process feels instantaneous.

The update also brings Google's RAISR machine learning technology to the app to create super-resolution detail in images, adds 3D Touch support to the interface, and introduces fully automatic cinemagraphs – looping moving images in which the foreground subject moves while the background remains static.

Google's updated Motion Stills app for iPhone and iPad can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct link]

Top Rated Comments

CarpalMac Avatar
99 months ago
I wonder in Apple HQ, what goes on.

Do Apple think such developments are beneath them, are unwanted, or do they simply not have the resources available?

It just seems like yet another kind of thing I would expect them to be implementing, not their rivals, as seems to be more the norm.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
69Mustang Avatar
99 months ago
Hangouts is truly awful. High in bandwidth and cpu consumption, low in quality. Facetime wipes the floor with it for 1:1 conversations.
For a lot of people, Facetime has one glaring deficiency. Platform locked. It's a decent feature no doubt, but limited in widespread usefulness.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gaanee Avatar
99 months ago
Google and Microsoft, both are developing useful apps on the iOS platform especially using machine learning, while Apple seems to be doing only incremental updates in terms of exploring the full potential of integrating machine learning into apps. iPhone does add new hardware features but it's Google and Microsoft who make full use of these features with their apps - Google Motion Stills, Microsoft Pix...
Looks like Apple is getting into the same phase of being complacent as what happened to Microsoft with Windows XP,
having customers already locked into their ecosystem, now showing very little incentive for further developing their software to compete with Google and Microsoft.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ike1707 Avatar
99 months ago
It'd be nice if they gave two sh*ts about keeping Hangouts up to date. All the potential of Whatsapp and they're just too busy with their other 5(or however many) chat apps :oops:
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
69Mustang Avatar
99 months ago
Apple needs to pay attention to this. Google just made a gimmicky feature a little less gimmicky.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iPhone SE 4 Vertical Camera Feature

iPhone SE 4 Rumored to Use Same Rear Chassis as iPhone 16

Friday July 19, 2024 7:16 am PDT by
Apple will adopt the same rear chassis manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 that it is using for the upcoming standard iPhone 16, claims a new rumor coming out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker "Fixed Focus Digital," the backplate manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 is "exactly the same" as the standard model in Apple's upcoming iPhone 16 lineup, which is expected to...
iPhone 16 Pro Sizes Feature

iPhone 16 Series Is Just Two Months Away: Everything We Know

Monday July 15, 2024 4:44 am PDT by
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
bsod

Crowdstrike Says Global IT Outage Impacting Windows PCs, But Mac and Linux Hosts Not Affected

Friday July 19, 2024 3:12 am PDT by
A widespread system failure is currently affecting numerous Windows devices globally, causing critical boot failures across various industries, including banks, rail networks, airlines, retailers, broadcasters, healthcare, and many more sectors. The issue, manifesting as a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), is preventing computers from starting up properly and forcing them into continuous recovery...
iphone 14 lineup

Cellebrite Unable to Unlock iPhones on iOS 17.4 or Later, Leak Reveals

Thursday July 18, 2024 4:18 am PDT by
Israel-based mobile forensics company Cellebrite is unable to unlock iPhones running iOS 17.4 or later, according to leaked documents verified by 404 Media. The documents provide a rare glimpse into the capabilities of the company's mobile forensics tools and highlight the ongoing security improvements in Apple's latest devices. The leaked "Cellebrite iOS Support Matrix" obtained by 404 Media...
Apple Watch Series 9

2024 Apple Watch Lineup: Key Changes We're Expecting

Tuesday July 16, 2024 7:59 am PDT by
Apple is seemingly planning a rework of the Apple Watch lineup for 2024, according to a range of reports from over the past year. Here's everything we know so far. Apple is expected to continue to offer three different Apple Watch models in five casing sizes, but the various display sizes will allegedly grow by up to 12% and the casings will get taller. Based on all of the latest rumors,...
tinypod apple watch

TinyPod Turns Your Apple Watch Into an iPod

Wednesday July 17, 2024 3:18 pm PDT by
If you have an old Apple Watch and you're not sure what to do with it, a new product called TinyPod might be the answer. Priced at $79, the TinyPod is a silicone case with a built-in scroll wheel that houses the Apple Watch chassis. When an Apple Watch is placed inside the TinyPod, the click wheel on the case is able to be used to scroll through the Apple Watch interface. The feature works...