Google Camera removes ‘Photo Sphere’ mode starting with Pixel 8

Ben Schoon | Oct 11 2023 - 12:16 pm PT

After nearly a decade, Google is removing the “Photo Sphere” mode from Pixel phones, starting with the Pixel 8 series.

“Photo Sphere” was a Google Camera feature that could capture images of your surroundings in the style of something like Google Street View. This was done by capturing multiple images and letting the phone stitch them together afterwards. It occasionally worked really well, and was an impressive feat especially at the time of its debut back on the Nexus 4, released in 2012.

The feature has lived on, mostly unchanged, through the years, but is finally going away.

On the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, Google has removed Photo Sphere as a part of Google Camera 9.1. Google confirmed the removal to Android Authority, but offered no reasoning for it.

Really, though, it’s not particularly hard to imagine why Google would ditch this. Photo Sphere was cool, but it rarely worked very well. And it hasn’t gotten much attention over the years either – a lot of folks probably don’t even know it exists at this point.

Notably, the feature is still in place on prior Pixel releases (Pixel Fold, 7, etc), at least on Google Camera 9.0. Google Camera 9.1 has yet to roll out to older Pixel devices, so we’ll have to wait and see if it’s removed at that point.