Samsung working on GIF-tastic Live Photos rival for the Galaxy S7
Silent but vibrant
Move over iPhone: Samsung is working on its own version of Live Photos for the Galaxy S7, and by all accounts it’s shaping up to be better than Apple’s version.
It’s probably going to be called Vivid Photos, and could record higher quality clips than the iPhone 6S can manage by ditching audio recording. Each clip will record about 1.5s of video before and 1.5s after you press the shutter button, creating an animated image with a little more life than a still photo.
The details are still sketchy right now, but increasing the frame rate beyond the 12fps Apple has settled on would make clips look smoother and more lifelike.
Because everything gets recorded as a GIF, they’ll be a whole lot easier to share online. Facebook added Apple’s proprietary format to its website last year, but Live Photos still don’t work on its iOS app.
Facebook already supports GIFS, though, so anyone that picks up a Galaxy S7 on launch day will be able to share their clips right away. Twitter and Tumblr are GIF-friendly too, so there’ll be no stopping the endless stream of animated memes and recordings.
According to AndroidGeeks, who has a source in close contact with Samsung’s software engineers, the name isn’t quite official yet – it could be called Timeless Photo instead.
It’s not guaranteed to arrive in time for the Galaxy S7’s launch, either – it might be bundled in with a software update later in the year if the software team can’t get it ready before the rumoured February reveal.
If the leaks are true, the Galaxy S7 is shaping up to be a beast of a phone: expect a QHD AMOLED screen, Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM and a redesigned 12MP camera, along with Android Marshmallow out of the box.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor 
