Google Motion Stills Brings GIF-Making to Android Michael Kwan July 21, 2017 News So, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed that animated GIFs have become all the rage all over social media, especially on Facebook and Twitter. I’ll admit I use them for comments probably more often than actual words. But what if you want to start making some of your own? Google is coming to the rescue for all the Android peeps out there, because Motion Stills is finally here. Well, it was already here, but now it’s here for Android too. You might remember when they launched Motion Stills for iOS last year. The idea was that you could take your iPhone Live Photos, stabilize them, and then export them as looping GIFs that you could then more easily share beyond the iPhone ecosystem. Announced by way of the Google Research Blog, Motion Stills for Android is effectively much the same, except for Google’s mobile OS. It’s compatible with devices running Android 5.1 and later, which should be pretty well everyone at this point. The video stabilization might be the biggest draw here, taking your videos and making them look like you shot them on a gimbal. You can also trim and combine your videos together. By default, you can record a video clip of up to three seconds in length and the app will convert it into a GIF. That’s somewhat similar to the automatic GIFs that the assistant creates in Google Photos, except you have more control. You can also shoot longer videos which can then be sped up to make a short GIF too. That’s called Fast Forward. Playback can be sped up to 8x after recording, letting you process up to a full minute of video on your phone. Motion Stills for Android is available now in the Google Play Store as a free download. Happy GIF-ing. Share This With The World!
