Google Photos May Grant Universal Access to Magic Editor Tool

Google Photos might let everyone use its cool Magic Editor for free soon! This special tool helps fix up your photos by changing the sky or getting rid of stuff you don’t want in the picture. Right now, only people with Google One or certain Google Pixel phones can use it.

But, some hints found in the Google Photos app suggest that a free version of Magic Editor could be on the way. Here’s the catch: if you don’t pay for Google One, you might only be able to edit a few photos each month.

Some lines of code in the app talk about a “metered” version of Magic Editor. It means you can only edit a limited number of photos every month unless you sign up for Google One.

We might hear more about this at Google I/O 2024, which is Google’s big event about software. It’s happening on May 14. Besides the photo news, they’ll probably talk about other cool AI stuff like Gemini and Gemma, plus show off Android 15. And there might even be a peek at a new phone, the Pixel 8a, though some people are worried about its design.