But why? I LOVED that featu- oh wait! Right
Bring out your dead!
I don’t have enough wheelbarrows for all of them.
Stupid Google, this was a great camera feature. I use it all the time.
Don’t forget guys, Google My Maps is kept alive by one single Google employee. When he leaves the company, they’ll kill the feature for sure.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there was one single engineer that kept Photo Spheres alive.
Don’t forget guys, Google My Maps is kept alive by one single Google employee. When he leaves the company, they’ll kill the feature for sure.
Source?
I can’t find the name, but he used to reply to people on the support forum. I can’t even find the support forum now… They also killed the Android app in 2021.
I was ready to ask what the fuck are you on, until I re-read and spotted you talked about “Google my maps” and not “Google Maps”.
Every time I hear about Google killing a feature, it’s the first time hearing about the feature. So it makes sense to me.
I knew this is possible (Google Street View in remote areas has a bunch of pictures taken like this) but I thought it was part of the Street View app, or maybe Maps.
I just opened my Gcam app and sure enough, “360° photo” is right there, hidden away in the “other” section of a menu I only use to switch between taking pictures and taking videos.
Oh bloody hell!! I loved this feature! I always capture 360 photos to relive on VR!! Even the cardboard one was incredibly immersive!!!
Google removed the ability to turn them into tiny planets YEARS ago, and that’s what upsets me the most.
WHY? It’s one of the reasons why I like Pixel cameras?!
The photo sphere is still present on Android 14. It isn’t being taken away if you already have that feature.
Nobody talks about Daydream, but I have an old pixel 2 with Daydream and it’s great for these photo spheres.
I’m one of the dozens of people who likes Daydream and wishes it wasn’t killed off.
I just tried the photo sphere mode again for old times’ sake. It sure hasn’t gotten any better. Maybe they’re removing it so they can make and release a better version, but I won’t hold my breath.
You’re right! They’ll release a better version tied to Google One subscription
WHAT THE FUCK GOOGLE
I use this camera mode the most
Maaaaan… I didn’t use this for 360 photos, but as a workaround for the broken panorama mode. Every panorama photo I take with my pixel 6 is blurry - I believe it’s a bug where the camera doesn’t refocus when taking the next image
The thing that upsets me about this is that there’s a way to basically post photospheres to Google maps. So in distant locations where there’s interesting features (far away from a road) you can do a photosphere and essentially make it public on maps, so anyone can experience that location from anywhere in the world anytime they want.
Google maps generally only has “Street view” that’s provided and almost all other location ground-based view is a submission by someone.
This will sharply end the ability for people to add more of that or simply update any that already exist.
Nooooo. I always use this when the wide angle lens is not wide enough.
One more thing to add to the Google Graveyard
Honestly, I played around with it for a little bit and then never used it again. Of course one of the reasons was that it was so hidden and I simply forgot.
I used to use it when I took panoramic pictures on my phone. I always use Photo Sphere because it outputs a much more consistent result compared to regular panorama mode.
Is there a 3rd party app that does this?
Gcam Mods with a lower version than 9.0.
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I just went and looked, but couldn’t find a credible alternative on Android. Found an open source option that claimed to do spherical stitching, but crashed my phone when I tried to use it. I also stumbled upon the 360 videos I made with my Essential Phone, which I’d forgotten about but was kind of cool going into my past from that perspective. Honestly, the best replacement seems to be a 360 camera, which obviously doesn’t fall within the budget of many people
