- Google announced changes to its Photos API last September.
- Some of those changes going into effect at the end of March could break compatibility with products like digital picture frames.
- While Google continues to support frames, privacy concerns have forced the company to rethink its approach to API access.
How many of you bought a digital picture frame for a gift about twenty years ago? For a few brief years in the late noughties, a little LCD screen hooked up to a single-board computer was the go-to gift for parents who kept complaining about all the JPGs you were emailing them that they had no idea what to do with. These days, most of us have moved on to either enjoying photo slide shows on our full-sized televisions, or replacing single-purpose digital frames with more versatile smart home appliances like a Nest Hub or Pixel Tablet. If you’ve still got one of those dedicated frames, though, your experience with it may be about to hit a rough patch, as Google changes the way its Photos API works.
Late last summer, Google announced an overhaul to its Photos API, changing the way that apps and connected devices need to interact with the company’s servers if they want to continue accessing Photos content. Problem is, as The Verge points out, that threatens to break how some of these frames were designed to work. The change takes place at the end of the month, scheduled for March 31.