New Google leak reveals much-needed video update for Google Photos

Google is testing a major update to Google Photos that could significantly improve the experience of watching videos and navigating within the app.

According to recent discoveries by Android expert Assemble Debug, Google Photos will soon get a revamped video player that will offer much-needed quality of life improvements that make controlling video playback easier.

New features include:

• A redesigned search bar that you can touch with your fingertip as you navigate your video
• Updated control buttons
• Double-tap to quickly skip forward or back five seconds in the current video

Google Photos: New video navigation controls

Perhaps the most significant upgrade is the new “dotted” search bar, the control that lets you move back and forth through a video as it plays. The current search bar appears as a solid line with a dot moving along it to indicate your position in the video. You can touch the search bar anywhere along this line to jump to that location, or move your finger left and right to scroll through the video and find the section you want.

The new version replaces that solid line with a series of dots that move from right to left as the video plays. You can move the row of dots left or right with your fingertip to move through the video, while a subtle vibration effect helps you “feel” the movement, more like interacting with something tangible than just dots on a screen.

Interestingly, the new search bar doesn’t seem to show your current position in the video, as there is no longer a dot moving along the line indicating you.

Also new is the ability to jump forward and backward in five-second increments by double-tapping on the left or right edge of the video during playback. A similar function already exists within the YouTube app, where you can jump forward or backward ten seconds within the video by double-tapping. However, the YouTube app takes it a step further by letting you add additional taps to increase the jump size in ten-second increments. So, tap three times to skip forward 20 seconds, or tap five times quickly to skip 40 seconds. Whether additional tapping will have a similar effect in Google Photos’ video player remains to be seen.

Google Photos: New video control buttons

In the current video player layout, the play/pause button always appears exactly in the middle of the video you want to watch. When you pause a video to take a closer look, the play button appears in the middle of the screen, covering part of the video until you resume playback. The new layout moves this button to the bottom of the screen so that it is no longer visible in the image.

The mute button has been moved from the right side of the search bar to the left. The report now refers to this as a volume button rather than a simple on/off control for the sound. It’s currently unclear whether the new button controls now allow for volume control rather than just muting or activating. However, the physical volume control on your smartphone already handles this function very well, so a secondary volume control on the screen seems unnecessary.

However, moving the mute button to the left makes room for a new loop button: Currently, videos automatically loop endlessly when played in Google Photos. Tapping the loop button will probably disable this repeat feature, allowing the video to play once and then stop.

These unreleased updates currently remain hidden in the code of version 7.4 of the Google Photos app for Android. They are not yet available to most users, but Assemble Debug has enabled them and reviewed them before publishing. This means Google still has time to make changes before rolling them out to users. Therefore, the update may look slightly different when it is finally released.

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