Google, Apple, and other apps recognize faces, how is Ponga different?

Our goal with Ponga is to use pictures to bring families together. Apple photo and Google Photos are wonderful tools to use as the first stop in backing up images that you capture with your mobile phone. And who doesn't take several a day?

These tools are optimized for the convenience of mobile users. They also include presets for image editing and cost-effective (or free) storage. They offer face recognition as a way to find photos of specific people. They're not very good at using faces to organize, share, and tell stories about the people in your pictures.

Ponga optimizes for things families need.

• Privacy: First is the privacy to share family moments, stories, and recollections without the pressures of social media, or fear of revealing personal information.
• Organization: Second, are organizational tools like the gallery automatically detect and collect the people in your pictures into albums.
• Storytelling: Third are storytelling tools like voice recordings, written commentaries, embedded media that leapfrog anything on Facebook, Instagram, or any social platform.
• Sharing: Finally, is complete control to sharing pictures and albums so that it's not only easy to share, but also easy to control.

Face recognition in Google and Apple photo apps is useful for finding individuals in a large photo archive. When you add photos to a collection, it can take hours or even weeks to detect faces at all, much less associate them with the right name. Depending on the service you're using and the size of your photo archive, file sizes and types can also be an issue. Some people find Goole's file compression or Apple's iCloud storage fees to be a problem.

Ponga supports PNG, JPG, and TIF file types with no limit on per-image file sizes. There are also no limitations on the number of images in a library and Ponga fees are very straightforward for memberships which include an unlimited number of guest contributors. Learn more at How Accounts Work

Because Google and Apple photo apps are intertwined with the operating systems for Android, Chrome browsers, MacOS and/or iOS, your use of them can also make sharing pictures outside the systems complicated. Requiring a login to view a picture is fine and protects the privacy of the shared image, but creating a Google or Apple account creates an extra layer of complexity.

As a practical matter, Google and Apple photo apps make great complements to Ponga. They offer the convenience of cloud-based storage and search, image uploads from mobile and integration into desktop apps. Most mobile devices use either Google or Apple software and their photo options are built-in.

Feel free to reach out in our Live Chat window if you have any questions.