Google has acquired Fly Labs in a move that will likely see the startup’s media editing technology into the Google Photos app. Fly Lab is a New York-based startup that makes video-editing apps.
Fly Labs announced the move on its website, saying that it’ll be “pouring the same passion into Google Photos that we poured into Clips, Fly, Tempo, and Crop on the Fly.”
According to venturebeat.com, in honor of this announcement, Fly Labs revealed that all of its apps will now be “completely free with no in-app purchases” and will be available in the App Store for the next three months.
The addition of Fly Labs’ technology will boost Google Photos, giving it a more robust media-editing capability to help in its rivalry with Instagram and other photo-sharing services.
Designed to provide apps that will help make mobile photos and videos not as boring, Fly Labs is a product of the New York City tech scene.
But what’s surprising is that an iDigitalTimes piece revealed that Fly Labs didn’t originally target the Android ecosystem — it wanted to remain solely on the iOS side.
“iPhone users appreciate great design more than Android users do,” Novikoff said in an interview. “iPhone video tech is what we’ve become experts at.”
So while Android once wasn’t of interest, now it’ll be the only interest as Fly is forced to pull its apps from the App Store.
In the company’s announcement post, it boasts that its video editing apps help users stay more connected with their memories by “engaging with them creatively.”