Google announced on Feb 14, 2016 that it intends to end support for Picasa and shift its users to Google Photos beginning March 15, 2016.
Google will cease to support the photo editing application that has been fading in terms of usage and popularity starting beginning March 15, 2016, according to a blog post by the company.
Picasa is an image-organizing software that Google acquired 12 years ago. It has not seen too many updates lately as Google was focusing on developing efforts on its new photo editing app, Photos.
The blog post from Anil Sabharwal, head of Google Photos, said that the company is opting to direct their focus on one application that affords a higher level of functionality, working across mobiles and desktops, instead of dividing their efforts on two different products.
Picasa desktop will still work for users who already have it installed, even after Google stops supporting it. Google also said that the photo editor will continue to be available for download; however, updates for compatibility with newer operating systems will no longer be offered.
Anil Sabharwal, who is the head of Google Photos, acknowledged that numerous users have saved pictures of family and friends on Picasa, and he went on to assure users that Google Photos will take care of that. He said that all photos they may have uploaded to Picasa Web Albums will be automatically transferred and waiting for them in Google Photos.
"[W]e will take some time in order to do this right and provide you with options and easy ways to access your content," Sabharwal explained to customers in his blog announcement.
Google Photos was underway in mid-2015, and allowed anyone with a Google account to automatically sync the photos they had on their mobile device with their laptops or a storage cloud - with unlimited free space.
Despite being around for barely over a year, Google Photos has swiftly caught on among its users. The company claimed in October that it had over 100 million active users per month.
PC Mag analyst Michael Muchmore also praised the interface of Google Photos in his review. He called it "clean, minimal, and pleasing, with thumbnails of your photos organized by date."
Picasa was one of the very first photo editing programs around that offered easy uploads and online storage.
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