[JHBrandt]

Google's Photos app annoys me. It kept posting notifications to "organize my photos by face" even after I'd turned all the notifications off in the app's settings! I have my photos organized just the way I like, thanks; and I don't want to help Google train their facial-recognition AI for free. (I already help them train their self-driving car AI when I'm forced to solve their captchas just to use a Web site.)

I tried just uninstalling the app with adb, but then I discovered I couldn't add photos to my contacts without it so I had to reinstall it. Finally had to block all notifications from Photos in Settings / Apps just to get the bloody thing to shut up.

So I'm looking for an alternative photo editor that's less of a nag. Any suggestions, hopefully free or nearly so?

[brookie229]

Google's Photos app annoys me. It kept posting notifications to "organize my photos by face" even after I'd turned all the notifications off in the app's settings! I have my photos organized just the way I like, thanks; and I don't want to help Google train their facial-recognition AI for free. (I already help them train their self-driving car AI when I'm forced to solve their captchas just to use a Web site.)

I tried just uninstalling the app with adb, but then I discovered I couldn't add photos to my contacts without it so I had to reinstall it. Finally had to block all notifications from Photos in Settings / Apps just to get the bloody thing to shut up.

So I'm looking for an alternative photo editor that's less of a nag. Any suggestions, hopefully free or nearly so?

There are Free and Open-source photo apps such as Simple Gallery Pro : https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com....s.gallery.pro/ with no Google involved. Check out F-Droid for other photo apps. Not sure if they have the features you want/need but no harm in checking them.

[JHBrandt]

Thanks for the suggestion. I downloaded & installed F-Droid and Simple Gallery Pro. The latter is a nice photo & video browser so I'll keep it. Unfortunately it also needs to be a photo editor in order to completely replace Google's app for adding photos to my contacts, so I need to keep looking for that. Edit: Never mind; Simple Gallery Pro does include a photo editor! Problem solved!

[Ment]

Simple Gallery Pro is an excellent photo gallery replacement app since you don't want the AI grouping/tagging of Google Photo.

[brookie229]

Thanks for the suggestion. I downloaded & installed F-Droid and Simple Gallery Pro. The latter is a nice photo & video browser so I'll keep it. Unfortunately it also needs to be a photo editor in order to completely replace Google's app for adding photos to my contacts, so I need to keep looking for that. Edit: Never mind; Simple Gallery Pro does include a photo editor! Problem solved!

Actually the "Simple" line of basic apps is reasonably good. They have a Simple File Manager, Simple App Launcher, Simple Notes, Clock, Camera, etc etc.

https://www.simplemobiletools.com

I've made a donation.

[JHBrandt]

Simple Gallery Pro is an excellent photo gallery replacement app since you don't want the AI grouping/tagging of Google Photo.

I wouldn't even mind AI grouping/tagging if the AI ran locally (although running AI algorithms on an 808 would probably have smoke coming out of the phone). But AIUI they do it all on their servers.

I have a love/hate relationship with Google. I love their software but man they're invasive. I'll (reluctantly) pay for a "free" app by giving up some of my privacy, but I guess that's not good enough for them: they want my friends' and acquaintances' privacy too!

[Paul Verizzo]

I'm struggling with the same issues, trying to move from Windows Phone, trying to stay away from Google the maximum amount possible. Android/Google is jaw droppingly invasive. Always looking over my shoulder. NEVER in WP.

Most of the gallery apps I tried did a sweep of every jpg in the phone and throws them all up against the screen w/o any sense of organization beyond perhaps date. Since I have a folder of vintage photos and somehow they got date stamped for a few years ago, they show up as if I took them then.

I came across Folder Gallery. You open the folders you want. If you want to look at a photo or video in more detail, it turns you over to the Google apps. I can live with that. No photo editor, and no sequence by dating. For now, it's OK. I will take a look at Simple apps.

My WP obviously uploaded photos and videos to Onedrive. I love Onedrive; the graphics, the logic, the user friendly interface. I found an app, One Sync that shoots your photos to Onedrive. You can do two way sync, but that's a whole nuther can of worms. Set it for one way, and you are good.

[Paul Verizzo]

I tried Simple Gallery Pro.............and it was almost identical to the Folder Gallery app I mentioned! The view was a little different, but clicking on the three dots revealed an identical menu!

As I keep looking for the ideal app for whatever purpose, it strikes me that this is a lot of code plagiarism. I see the same layouts, settings, etc. over and over within a genre.

[Chuck Finley69]

I'm struggling with the same issues, trying to move from Windows Phone, trying to stay away from Google the maximum amount possible. Android/Google is jaw droppingly invasive. Always looking over my shoulder. NEVER in WP.

Most of the gallery apps I tried did a sweep of every jpg in the phone and throws them all up against the screen w/o any sense of organization beyond perhaps date. Since I have a folder of vintage photos and somehow they got date stamped for a few years ago, they show up as if I took them then.

I came across Folder Gallery. You open the folders you want. If you want to look at a photo or video in more detail, it turns you over to the Google apps. I can live with that. No photo editor, and no sequence by dating. For now, it's OK. I will take a look at Simple apps.

My WP obviously uploaded photos and videos to Onedrive. I love Onedrive; the graphics, the logic, the user friendly interface. I found an app, One Sync that shoots your photos to Onedrive. You can do two way sync, but that's a whole nuther can of worms. Set it for one way, and you are good.

Yet WP/BB10 failed because developers and consumers preferred that Android/iOS way of paying.

[nkitt]

Using F-stop since priv days, was so happy with it that I bought the paid version. I also like my photos grouped by me so I can remember them, and another reason for buying the pro version was that I like to add tags as metadata. Which I can do here.
And for editing I prefer snapseed. It's totally free and has a lot of features ( for a free app)

[Paul Verizzo]

Yet WP/BB10 failed because developers and consumers preferred that Android/iOS way of paying.

I don't mind paying people for their skills and time. And you eventually pay one way or the other, directly or in the cost of the phone.

[Paul Verizzo]

Since then I found A+ Photo Gallery. Dang, just what I was hoping for!

Auto sorts by date in order, you can move to different folders, dark theme.

Well worth the $4 no ad ransom fee.

I'll look into that F-Stop someone suggested, too.

[JHBrandt]

I don't mind paying people for their skills and time. And you eventually pay one way or the other, directly or in the cost of the phone.

I don't mind either - although to be fair, neither do I mind ad-supported apps as long as the ads aren't too obtrusive.

I paid to get rid of Textra's ads - I felt the product was well worth the same $4 (IIRC) but their ads were at the top of my list of SMS conversations - too obtrusive. But I use Reboot Pro on my rooted Samsung even though it has ads: its ads don't get in the way of my using the app. I suspect a lot of folks feel the same way - they don't mind ads if it means they get a free app, and they probably don't even mind that the ads are "tailored" to them (in fact that may even be a plus).

They just don't realize how invasive the companies that collect all that ad-targeting data really are. They collect far more data than they need to just target ads. The Goog doesn't need to learn to recognize my friends' faces in order to decide what ads to show me, and I certainly don't need an app preinstalled on my non-rootable phone that constantly nags me to let them do that. (But to be fair, I have to thank the Goog for the adb program that let me get that app out of my hair too.)

[Chuck Finley69]

I don't mind paying people for their skills and time. And you eventually pay one way or the other, directly or in the cost of the phone.

Unfortunately, the major of the others don’t care for your way. Developers prefer simplicity and chances are they get paid more doing it the data payment way. There’s a reason that Windows and BlackBerry failed. There’s just not enough people that care about the official paid model.

[JHBrandt]

To be fair, mobile developers don't really have a choice. They're faced with a market they didn't design, where 99% of the apps are either free or very cheap, and generally ad-supported. Few if any can come up with an app that could command even a $10 price in such a market.

The desktop app market is totally different. Sure, adware exists, but buyers are much more resistant to it and are willing to pay - in some cases, quite a lot - to avoid it.

The dominance of different compensation models in each market effectively locks new developers into the existing model for that market. It also locks them into developing for the dominant OSes in each market - which in turn locks out any OS that doesn't offer a huge assortment of niche apps (which is where Windows Phone and BB both failed).