Deep Dive With Google's Snapseed Team: Android App Launches, iOS Is Free And Instagram Should Watch Out
One of the things that we hear the most from pundits when Google acquires a company, much like it did Nik Software, makers of the gorgeous and dead-simple to use app Snapseed, is “What will they end up doing with them?”
Context & Ripple Effects
Snapseed entered Google's orbit after the September acquisition of Nik Software, following earlier plans to bring the iPad-recognized photo app to Android tablets. The Android launch and free iOS version show Google putting that acquired editing product in front of a broader mobile audience rather than keeping it confined to Apple's platform.
The move lands amid coverage framing creativity tools as a growing iOS-app category, while Google's purchase had already been cast as a response to Instagram and Facebook in mobile photography.
First-order effects
- Snapseed gains Android distribution and removes the iOS price barrier, expanding access to Google's newly acquired photo-editing product across both major mobile platforms.
- Google turns Nik Software's consumer app into a direct free alternative for mobile photo editing, placing Snapseed more visibly alongside Instagram and Facebook's photo experiences.
Second-order effects
- Paid mobile photo-editing apps face pressure to justify their price as Snapseed's established iOS tool becomes free and reaches Android users.
- Instagram and Facebook face a stronger upstream editing rival: users can alter images in Snapseed before sharing them through social-photo services.
Third-order effects
- If Google continues pairing acquisitions with cross-platform distribution and free consumer access, standalone creative-app makers will have greater incentive to differentiate through specialized workflows rather than basic editing tools.
- Mobile photography is shifting toward a layered market in which editing tools compete for control of image preparation while social networks compete for distribution and audience.
The trend: Google's Snapseed rollout is one point in the contest to make photo editing, not only photo sharing, a strategic layer of the mobile imaging market.