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Can you give an example of the type of search where Apple photos fails but Google photos succeeds? I only use Apple photos, but it supports my use case of date/

by DeRock 5y ago

Can you give an example of the type of search where Apple photos fails but Google photos succeeds? I only use Apple photos, but it supports my use case of date/location/"object detection" search, but wondering if I'm missing out on something much better.

radicaldreamer 5y ago
Object detection is much more broad in Google Photos and complex queries are in a different league ("dogs in new york city")
- Terretta 5y ago
  The ‘complex queries’ in Apple Photos is done as a series of discrete set descriptors. As you type your descriptor, tap the appropriate found set below (they list photos in the set) to turn it into a tag, then continue typing the next descriptor. For this search, you’d end up with something that looks like: [new york metropolitan area][dog] These result in a venn diagram of the overlaps. In my case with 12K photos in NY metro, it found the one dog photo I had.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    Their tags are just strictly inferior. In Apple Photos I can search for a car. In Google Photos I can search for a specific manufacturer and it recognizes not just the logos but attempt to classify the actual cars they make. For example, it recognizes a Toyota from a BMW just based on the body shape. The text search is insane too, it can find text in photos you would struggle to realize was there in many cases, which is huge when trying to find old information.
BoorishBears 5y ago
Everything. Compared to Google Photos there's not one query that isn't vastly inferior. Finding text in images, finding obscure relationships between a query and a photo. I mean, I can search for my cars by make! Like, no logo showing, I type in "Porsche" and my old Boxster shows up including photos that don't have a visible logo. I had out of town guests visit and we went to Times Square. I could find pictures from a specific vantage point by searching for specific text in billboards The facial recognition is a million miles ahead too. Across all my photos Apple only recognizes a handful of recurring faces. Google recognizes people I don't even realize were in multiple pictures. - I suspect Apple is behind because they're using less invasive indexing or something, so I'm not saying switch... but also Apple Photos might as well not have search once you've tried Google Photos.
- carabiner 5y ago
  Apple's runs on the device, Google's runs on cloud with the results downloaded.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    Sure that's the less invasive indexing I mentioned, but they're also just not even in the same ballpark as Google I'm not convinced that even if Google ported their indexing models to the device (like they did for the Pixel's voice recognition) they'd sink to the level of Apple's current implementation.
    - carabiner 5y ago
      Why don't they?
      - BoorishBears 5y ago
        Don't they what, port their models to being on-device? I'm not Google, but just look at why they did it for voice: The hardware caught up, the UX is better when it's done locally, and I think they mentioned better power consumption? Presumably at some point that might happen for image recognition. They already started in Google Lens with porting OCR + translation onto the device
Waterluvian 5y ago
"Driveway" "Winter backyard" "forest with cats" "<childname>'s first birthday" "<name> and <name> at cottage" It's ridiculous how powerful and indispensable this intelligent search is. I have tens of thousands of photos, growing every day. Being able to text search their contents is the killer feature that makes it useful. Apple's photo library is not useful without this.

by DeRock 5y ago

radicaldreamer 5y ago

Object detection is much more broad in Google Photos and complex queries are in a different league ("dogs in new york city")

Terretta 5y ago
The ‘complex queries’ in Apple Photos is done as a series of discrete set descriptors. As you type your descriptor, tap the appropriate found set below (they list photos in the set) to turn it into a tag, then continue typing the next descriptor. For this search, you’d end up with something that looks like: [new york metropolitan area][dog] These result in a venn diagram of the overlaps. In my case with 12K photos in NY metro, it found the one dog photo I had.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  Their tags are just strictly inferior. In Apple Photos I can search for a car. In Google Photos I can search for a specific manufacturer and it recognizes not just the logos but attempt to classify the actual cars they make. For example, it recognizes a Toyota from a BMW just based on the body shape. The text search is insane too, it can find text in photos you would struggle to realize was there in many cases, which is huge when trying to find old information.

BoorishBears 5y ago

Everything. Compared to Google Photos there's not one query that isn't vastly inferior. Finding text in images, finding obscure relationships between a query and a photo. I mean, I can search for my cars by make! Like, no logo showing, I type in "Porsche" and my old Boxster shows up including photos that don't have a visible logo. I had out of town guests visit and we went to Times Square. I could find pictures from a specific vantage point by searching for specific text in billboards The facial recognition is a million miles ahead too. Across all my photos Apple only recognizes a handful of recurring faces. Google recognizes people I don't even realize were in multiple pictures. - I suspect Apple is behind because they're using less invasive indexing or something, so I'm not saying switch... but also Apple Photos might as well not have search once you've tried Google Photos.

carabiner 5y ago
Apple's runs on the device, Google's runs on cloud with the results downloaded.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  Sure that's the less invasive indexing I mentioned, but they're also just not even in the same ballpark as Google I'm not convinced that even if Google ported their indexing models to the device (like they did for the Pixel's voice recognition) they'd sink to the level of Apple's current implementation.
  - carabiner 5y ago
    Why don't they?
    - BoorishBears 5y ago
      Don't they what, port their models to being on-device? I'm not Google, but just look at why they did it for voice: The hardware caught up, the UX is better when it's done locally, and I think they mentioned better power consumption? Presumably at some point that might happen for image recognition. They already started in Google Lens with porting OCR + translation onto the device

Waterluvian 5y ago

"Driveway" "Winter backyard" "forest with cats" "<childname>'s first birthday" "<name> and <name> at cottage" It's ridiculous how powerful and indispensable this intelligent search is. I have tens of thousands of photos, growing every day. Being able to text search their contents is the killer feature that makes it useful. Apple's photo library is not useful without this.