Amazon Photos has finally been redesigned for Android users

Amazon emphasizes that the new navigation options are all “within a thumb’s reach.” | Image: Amazon

Amazon Photos on Android has been redesigned to make app navigation and sharing photos and videos easier for its users, bringing the service in line with a similar update that rolled out to iOS devices almost a year ago.

Now, Amazon Photo users can search a photo gallery from the home screen singlehandedly — emphasizing navigation options all being “within a thumb’s reach.” Swiping up within the Amazon Photos gallery on your device will open a new control panel where users can find curated features to filter photos by object, place, or year.

Tapping the Amazon Smile logo at the top-left-hand corner of the gallery page will also give users access to options such as customer accounts, uploads, and prints, while the “Paper airplane” button on the top right will take users to a page where images and videos can be privately shared with friends and family.

Amazon Prime subscribers have access to free, unlimited full-resolution photo storage and 5GB of video storage on Amazon Photos, which can be easily showcased on devices such as the Echo Show and Fire TV. The Amazon Photos Android app will be automatically updated to reflect these changes for existing users.

These features aren’t anything new for iOS users but they give Amazon Photos on Android devices a much-needed refresh to compete with rival services such as Google Photos, which doesn’t offer a comparable free storage tier. Google has, however, pushed out several updates of its own this year, providing improvements to libraries and sharing as well as a redesigned Memories feature in the same time that it’s taken Amazon to push these old updates to Android devices.