Google Photos 2.0 bakes in Live Photo editing features from Motion Stills app

Back in June, Google released a Motion Stills app that removes shakes from iOS Live Photos and turns them into easily shareable GIFs and movies. That functionality is now built into Google Photos 2.0 with more sharing options and a number of other tweaks.

Motion Stills allows you to do a number of things with a Live Photo, like creating still images that freeze the background and making short videos that feature sweeping cinematic pans. While a Live Photo can only be shared among Apple devices, Google Photos allows creations to be exported as either a movie or GIF.

The features come via Google Research and uses advanced stabilization algorithms that work completely offline. Integrating this feature right into Google Photos makes sense and opens the feature up to more people. For more advanced editing features beyond creating still images and pans, you still need to download the full Motion Stills app.

Version 2.0 also features an easier way to share videos directly to the YouTube app and various performance improvements. Additionally, photos in albums can now be sorted chronologically or by recently added and users can manually select thumbnails for faces in People.

This update is rolling out now through the App Store and the full changelog is below: