Google has acquired Nik Software, the company behind most popular iOS app Snapseed. With the acquisition Google will add the Snapseed capabilities to it’s Google+ to compete with Facebook and Instagram.
Snapseed is available for iOS, Mac and Windows, an Android version is coming soon from the company. Snapseed is one of the most popular apps in the iTunes store and gained over nine million users in its first year. It became iPad app of the year in 2011.
Google has already added some good photo editing tools to it’s Google+ product, for example high resolution photos and facial recognition. With the acquisition of Snapseed Google might add some features from the app to Google+, but it is not clear what those features are. Announcing the acquisition Google’s Vic Gundotra says “We want to help our users create photos they absolutely love, and in our experience Nik does this better than anyone.”
Snapseed is a paid app with a price tag of $4.99, it has gained 9 million users since the launch, by comparison Instagram has 100 million users, with the Google acquisition Snapseed user base increase significantly. Google+ has 400 million registered users and 100 million active users according to Google.
