Robert Triggs / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is working on a new video editing feature for its Photos app.
- The upcoming feature will let you adjust the playback speed of an entire video, or tweak a small section of the video for a cool effect.
- The feature is not live in the current Google Photos release, and it will likely roll out with a future update.
Google Photos’ built-in video editor may not be as feature-rich as a dedicated video editing app, but it’s decent enough for the average user. It offers all the tools you’d need to make basic edits like cropping or adding effects, and it may soon get another handy feature to help you speed up or slow down your videos. Although this feature is not live in the current version of the app, we’ve manually enabled it in Google Photos version 6.90 to give you an early look.
An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
As you can see in the attached screenshots, the feature is part of the Video options in Google Photos’ built-in editor. It shows up as a “1x” icon next to the buttons to mute, enhance, and stabilize the video. Tapping the icon opens a new UI with the video preview at the top, followed by a timeline and a few playback speed options.
The feature offers five playback speed options to choose from, including 1/4x, 1/2x, 1x, 2x, and 4x, and you can set the desired playback speed to the entire video or just a small section using the timeline. Once you’re satisfied with the result, you can tap on the Done button in the bottom right corner to save the video.
The feature is pretty barebones and doesn’t let you adjust the playback speed of two or more sections of the video simultaneously. However, you should be able to do so by saving the video after adjusting a section and then editing the resulting video to tweak a different section.
You may not have to resort to that, though, as Google is still working on the feature and the company may add more functionality by the time it rolls out to users.
What do you think of this new video editing feature in Google Photos? Let us know in the comments.