Google and Apple have invested a lot into cloud photo solutions. Today, we’re going to compare the two services and see which one is better. Google recently unveiled their Google Photo Service, which supports both mobile applications and web applications.

Cloud Storage

The idea behind these two cloud services is that users are allowed to store pictures and videos and access them from any device that they own. Google named it Google Photos, while Apple named it iCloud Photo Library.

Google is offering unlimited storage capacity for all your photos and videos for free, but keep in mind you will only be allowed to upload pictures taken at maximum of 16MP and video quality of 1080p. Once it detects a picture that has more than 16MP and a video shot at over 1080p, the application will automatically scale them.

This should not be a problem with most smartphones out there, but if your shooting with a DSL camera that can capture 40MP images and 4K videos, then you will notice your photos and videos will lose a lot of their quality while uploading them to Google’s cloud storage.

In order to upload photos and videos without worrying about their high quality, you can buy more storage solutions. Here are the storage prices:

– 100GB: 1.99 dollars per month;
– 1TB: 9.99 dollars per month;
– 10TB: 99.99 dollars per month;
– 20TB: 199.99 dollars per month;
– 30TB: 299.99 dollars per month.

On the other hand, Apple’s iCloud Photo library doesn’t offer unlimited storage. Below are Apple’s iCloud Photo library storage prices:

– 20GB: 0.99 dollars per month;
– 200GB: 3.99 dollars per month;
– 500GB: 9.99 dollars per month;
– 1TB: 19.99 dollars per month.

Devices

Google Photos is available for both Android and iOS, but it also comes with a web based platform that can be accessed from your PC and Mac. Using an upload application, you will be able to upload photos and videos directly from your PC or Mac device.

Apple’s iCloud Photo Library supports only iOS and Mac. It doesn’t have an Android application. This can be ok if you’re an Apple fan and don’t own any Android tablets, smartphones or Windows PC. However, we’re pretty sure that Android tablets and smartphones are used by a lot of people nowadays.

Organizing and Searching

When it comes to organizing your pictures, Apple’s iCloud Storage and Google Photos come with similar features. You can create albums, mark your favorite pictures and the system will also sort the pictures by date and location.

However, Google Photos comes with an enhanced search feature. Apple’s iCloud Photos allows you to search for places, keywords or people. On the other hand, Google Photos allows you to search photos that contain a “cat” or a “mobile phone” by just searching these strings.

Sharing

Both photos applications will allow you to share images via the web, social media or email.

Privacy

We all care about our privacy, this is where things are not looking too good for Google. It seems that every photo you upload on Google Photos can eventually be edited by the big search engine and sold. For example, if you take an awesome picture with a great landscape, Google can edit the picture just a little bit and sell it to advertisers. In other words, the more photos you upload on Google Photos, the more Google will know about you.

Here is where Apple shines, because it doesn’t scan any data from the photos you upload. It doesn’t touch your pictures to edit them and sell them to advertisers. This is one of the reasons why Apple can’t afford to give unlimited free storage, like Google does. Well, as you can see, Google’s free storage is not actually free, as they can make a lot of money out of your pictures.

Apple’s Tim Cook said that their customers should be in control of their own information. We might like the “so called free services”, but we have to think twice before we upload something on a free service.

Conclusion

Google Photos is a better service because it is free and it comes with unlimited storage and has some awesome search capabilities. On the other hand, Apple’s iCloud Photo storage will keep your personal stuff private.

Without a doubt, our photos and videos are among the most personal stuff we have and only we should have access to them.

What do you think about Google Photos and Apple’s iCloud Photo? Which one do you prefer to use? Did you know about all the privacy issues that Google Photos comes with and do you consider this a big privacy violation?