Do you envy iPhone owners and their Live Photos? Would you like to be able to capture animated photos with your mobile device? You may not know it, but there are several techniques for creating Live Photos from an Android smartphone. We explain how it works..
An application to add the Live Photo function to an Android mobile
Appeared during the launch of the iPhone 6s, Apple's Live Photo function has been extremely successful with Apple phone users. It must be said that the concept is very ingenious. You take your photo as you usually do. The Live Photo function then takes care of automatically capturing a video of 3 seconds just before and just after the shooting.
The entire operation is carried out directly from the camera application installed by default on the iPhone. The result is really great. The photos magically come alive with the sound above all. Small videos can then be shared on social networks like Facebook, Internet messaging or by email..
The phenomenon is such that this new function has aroused enormous jealousy among owners of Android smartphones. Although the Live Photo device is exclusive to iPhones only, there are third-party apps on the Play Store that offer similar functionality.
Bring photos to life with Google Motion Stills
Are your friends and colleagues equipped with an iPhone taunting you with their Live Photos? Even if most Android smartphones do not offer this type of functionality natively, there are still different ways to create Live Photos on Android. This is the case, for example, of the Motion Stills application developed by Google..
This very easy-to-use tool will offer you the possibility of making animated images when taking a photo. The application also offers different photo editing modes, including a tool for adding 3D objects (virtual reality). 
- Download Motion Stills from the Google Play Store by clicking on this link
- Launch the freshly installed application
- Place the photo sensor in front of the scene to capture
- Keep your smartphone upright without moving
- Press the shutter button at the bottom of the screen
- Click on the arrow button to share your creation in MP4 or Gif format
The app will automatically record a short three-second video clip. Note the very good video stabilization system. Only regret, it is not possible to choose the place where the videos are stored in the internal memory of the smartphone.
Camera MX an alternative to Apple's Live Photo
This is certainly the application offering a photo solution closest to that offered by Apple. And good news Camera MX is compatible with most Android smartphones. The quality of the videos does not suffer from any criticism. You just have to be careful not to move too much when taking the picture.
- Open the Play Store
- Type Camera MX in the search engine
- Install the app on your smartphone
- Open Camera MX
- Find in the top left of the window the icon made up of three circles
- Click on it
- Select from the list, the Live Shot option
- During the first activation, the application will offer you a demonstration of the function in the form of a tutorial.
- Then click on the unlock button to complete the activation of the Live Shot function
- You will be asked to log into your Facebook or Google account
Now every time you take a photo with Camera MX, the app will automatically associate a few seconds of video with your shots. The animated sequences are viewed directly from the Photo Gallery function of the Camera MX app.
- Open Camera MX
- Press the Photo Gallery button at the bottom right of the window
- Scroll through the different photos
- Keep your finger pressed on the photo to launch the video associated with the photo
Take Live Photos with a Samsung phone without installing any application
The two apps presented above represent a credible alternative to Apple's Live Photos. They will help you keep a short animated sequence during your shots. We just regret that Google does not natively offer this type of functionality on Android or even a tool to rotate a video taken from a mobile.
Note that if you have a Samsung Galaxy smartphone running Android Nougat (or newer version) the photo application on your mobile has a shooting mode similar to that of Apple's Live Photos. To use it, you will just have to make sure to activate it from the settings pages of your device.
- Open the Photo app on your Samsung Galaxy smartphone
- Click on the gear icon at the top of the window
- Bring the window down
- Locate the Motion photo line also called Photo Motion
- Check that the switch is activated (blue color)
All photos taken with the camera of your Samsung Galaxy will now contain a mini video that is reminiscent of GIF animations that can be found on the net. Important detail, the video sequences are encoded in 960 x 720 format. This is clearly worse than the Lives Photos of iPhones which have a resolution of 1440 x 1080.