> Not sure why there are scare-quotes around feature either
"Scare quotes"? Really? I thought that term was retired long ago; maybe I should have said "so-called feature". But no, I don't consider it a feature, rather an annoyance that again, I never asked for or approved. I don't like to use car analogies, but one easily springs to mind: Imagine buying a new car, and right before you settle into the driver's seat to pull off the lot, the dealer stops you, readjusts your mirrors to point to the sky, changes the radio presets to stations you've never heard of, sets the transmission on sporty mode, and adjusts the seat to a severe angle. When you ask him what the hell he's doing, he tells you that in your contract you opted in to dealer presets, and you'll have to manually change all of them back yourself. Annoying, huh?
> And note that the backup is private, they aren't publishing these for the world to see or anything.
Correct, but I never gave them permission to use my metered data, nor my limited cloud storage space. What if I don't want those 200 or so 3MB pictures I took to eat up my entire monthly data allotment? If the setting is opt-out, and I didn't know it was doing it, it can be an expensive "feature". Something like that should definitely be opt-in.
> Do you want all new features to be opt-in?
Of course not; I never said that. But most should be, especially those relating to high data use.
> The toast pop-up alerting you to the new feature, with an option to disable it, the first time it's used is the best way to do this.
Except when that popup never shows up again, and you find out days or weeks later that the device has been doing things you didn't expect it to in the background.
And beyond all of this, there's the issue the OP raised, which is where Google decides to use one of your pictures as your profile photo, without any user intervention. If they will do that, who knows what else they will do with the rest of your photos? I found that some pictures I had taken while on vacation were somehow mixed into a "story" with other, unrelated pictures. Some pictures that I took in succession in the same location were put into an animated GIF without my knowledge or permission. Basically, Google decided what to do with my pictures without ever asking me about it first. That's rude, creepy, and annoying.
Heh. I actually really like the 'story' feature - Google created a bizarre sort of surreal adventure comic (involving lego models going on a journey around Edinburgh) for me, based on some completely unrelated (but GPS tagged) pictures I had taken. Still, YMMV and all that...
Oh, don't get me wrong: It's fascinating technology, though it seemed to be a bit flawed in my limited experience. I don't have a problem with the tech, I have a problem with them doing it without my knowledge or permission.
For example, on my Windows Phone, it asks me if I want to back up my photos and videos to SkyDrive, and tells me how to turn it on. If I dismiss the notification, it doesn't start uploading anything; it simply waits for me to turn it on.
With Android, the very first picture I take is already uploaded by the time I get the notification, and I have to not only turn off the feature that I never turned on, I have to then go onto my G+ account to delete the picture if I don't want it stored there.
Again, the technology itself (auto backup of all pics/vids) is amazing and a good thing. But turning it on for me, without even asking permission first, is flat out wrong.
Right, I understand what you mean now. And yes, the Windows Phone OneDrive integration seems to be more thought out and considerate of the end users possible concerns. So; Microsoft 1-0 Google, then? Amazing...!
Not necessarily.
> Not sure why there are scare-quotes around feature either
"Scare quotes"? Really? I thought that term was retired long ago; maybe I should have said "so-called feature". But no, I don't consider it a feature, rather an annoyance that again, I never asked for or approved. I don't like to use car analogies, but one easily springs to mind: Imagine buying a new car, and right before you settle into the driver's seat to pull off the lot, the dealer stops you, readjusts your mirrors to point to the sky, changes the radio presets to stations you've never heard of, sets the transmission on sporty mode, and adjusts the seat to a severe angle. When you ask him what the hell he's doing, he tells you that in your contract you opted in to dealer presets, and you'll have to manually change all of them back yourself. Annoying, huh?
> And note that the backup is private, they aren't publishing these for the world to see or anything.
Correct, but I never gave them permission to use my metered data, nor my limited cloud storage space. What if I don't want those 200 or so 3MB pictures I took to eat up my entire monthly data allotment? If the setting is opt-out, and I didn't know it was doing it, it can be an expensive "feature". Something like that should definitely be opt-in.
> Do you want all new features to be opt-in?
Of course not; I never said that. But most should be, especially those relating to high data use.
> The toast pop-up alerting you to the new feature, with an option to disable it, the first time it's used is the best way to do this.
Except when that popup never shows up again, and you find out days or weeks later that the device has been doing things you didn't expect it to in the background.
And beyond all of this, there's the issue the OP raised, which is where Google decides to use one of your pictures as your profile photo, without any user intervention. If they will do that, who knows what else they will do with the rest of your photos? I found that some pictures I had taken while on vacation were somehow mixed into a "story" with other, unrelated pictures. Some pictures that I took in succession in the same location were put into an animated GIF without my knowledge or permission. Basically, Google decided what to do with my pictures without ever asking me about it first. That's rude, creepy, and annoying.