Google Brings Family Features to YouTube TV, Calendar, Keep and Photos

Google Brings Family Features to YouTube TV, Calendar, Keep and Photos

Google already offers family-based sharing of apps, games, books, movies, TV, and music. And today it announced that it is bringing this functionality to its YouTube TV, Calendar, Keep and Photos services as well.

Music sharing occurs through the Google Play Music family plan, which lets you and five family members access the service using their own devices, music libraries and preferences for $14.99 per month. (An individual plan is $9.99.)

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Likewise, Google lets you share Google Play Store purchases—apps, games, books, movies, and TV shows—with up to five family members via the Family Library at no additional cost.

Now, this family sharing functionality is coming to more Google services, including:

YouTube TV. For no additional cost—the service costs $35 per month—you can add five additional family members to your YouTube TV subscription. Each gets their own cloud DVR with unlimited storage space, viewing preferences, and personal content library.

Google Calendar. Google Calendar is already free, but by adding family members, you can all keep track of each others’ schedules and create and manage family events on a special family calendar.

Google Keep. Google’s note-taking solution is likewise already free, but now you can capture and share ideas using Keep-based family reminders, shared lists, and notes.

Google Photos. Google announced the amazing new sharing functionality coming to Google Photos last week. And now families will be able to easily share photos and videos using the service.

This is all pretty impressive, obviously. And for anyone wondering when or if Microsoft is ever going to offer a Groove family plan, my advice is to move on to something that actually works well today. In this case Google Play Music.

You can find out more at the Google Families website.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Conversation 27 comments

  • JerryH

    Premium Member
    23 May, 2017 - 4:06 pm

    <p>Hmm, have to see how this changes things. My family of 4 has already been sharing calendars (we each have a personal one and we have one that is for "family events" and they are on all of our phones and tablets – different colors are for different people's personal calendar). For example I may have a dentist appt. The others can all see it is "Dad" because of the color. So I wonder what they changed since it already works so well.</p><p><br></p><p>As far as Keep, you've been able to do "collaborators" for years. We do this too. Shared To-Do, shopping, etc. with other items as private. Have to see what changed here since it seems this was already there too.</p>

  • cyloncat

    23 May, 2017 - 4:07 pm

    <p>The more Google tries to be my new best friend, the creepier they get. I know why they want that data. I know what they will do with any service that doesn't provide sufficient data mining results. Google is not my friend.</p><p>It's like a bunch of kids saw that old slogan, "Don't Be Evil," and asked each other, "How do I do that, exactly?"</p>

    • anchovylover

      23 May, 2017 - 10:38 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#118994"><em>In reply to cyloncat:</em></a></blockquote><p>Of course Google aren't your friend! Do you think MS or Apple is your friend? Wake up, all three have the same end goal…profit. </p>

      • Chris Blair

        24 May, 2017 - 7:38 am

        <p>I don't mind profit. Every successful company must make a profit, or disappear. And my 401k depends on profit. I was not lucky enough to work for a government or corporation that provided a significant pension. But I digress 🙂 What I don't like are companies selling my very personal data to 3rd parties, which I understand is done by Google but not Apple or Microsoft. But please correct me if I'm wrong about this. </p>

  • dnation70

    Premium Member
    23 May, 2017 - 4:10 pm

    <p>u know google should partner with microsoft</p>

  • arknu

    Premium Member
    23 May, 2017 - 4:16 pm

    <p>Unfortunately, all these family features are still only available in a handful of countries. No including mine, of course. Which is rather strange, as Google is usually much better than Microsoft at rolling things out internationally.</p>

    • anchovylover

      23 May, 2017 - 10:42 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#118998"><em>In reply to arknu:</em></a></blockquote><p>Google as the ability to reach the masses on the main device most of the world uses more and more, mobile. I would imagine these services will roll out reasonably soon. It's difficult for MS as their reach is confined to desktop mostly and we use desktop less and less.</p>

  • ponsaelius

    23 May, 2017 - 4:39 pm

    <p>It's interesting that as Google becomes more personal Microsoft drifts ever further towards the enterprise and away from consumers. Thus if you look at Microsoft from a personal technology perspective there is less of a footprint. </p><p>The irony is that Windowsphone 7 and 8 were both advertised as the most personal phones ever. That's when Microsoft used to mention they had a mobile platform.</p>

  • VancouverNinja

    Premium Member
    23 May, 2017 - 11:05 pm

    <p>Does anyone know anyone who is paying $35 a month for Google TV? Who uses Google keep? Google gets point for trying….</p>

    • dcdevito

      24 May, 2017 - 6:54 am

      <blockquote><a href="#119205"><em>In reply to VancouverNinja:</em></a></blockquote><p>I pay for YouTube TV, for $35 it's great for local live channels and sports, plus I share it with 4 other people. I've also been a Keep user for years, my wife and I share notes and To-Dos all the time. </p>

  • PeteB

    24 May, 2017 - 3:52 am

    <blockquote><a href="#119029"><em>In reply to nbplopes:</em></a><em> </em>Apple has been offering this features for years:</blockquote><p>WGAF</p>

    • nbplopes

      24 May, 2017 - 4:57 am

      <blockquote><a href="#119243"><em>In reply to PeteB:</em></a></blockquote><p>"WGAF"</p><p>Well Paul likes to compare stuff across Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. and you seam interested in reading the comparisons. </p><p>But than again, it looks like you may be suffering with it. So have a break, eat a cookie.</p>

  • dcdevito

    24 May, 2017 - 6:53 am

    <p>I don't see the Family Calendar stuff on my account, and I already have a family set up in Google.</p>

  • Tallin

    24 May, 2017 - 6:46 pm

    <blockquote><a href="#119029"><em>In reply to nbplopes:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Apps may be shared with families, but in-app purchases are not. This is especially annoying with something like Plex, where the app is "free" but you have an in-app purchase to unlock the actual usable app. With Windows, I can sign into the store on all my home computers and use the apps I've purchased on all of them, along with in-app purchases (this does work on Apple devices, too, but it also ties other aspects of the OS to that account, not just the store).</p>

    • nbplopes

      24 May, 2017 - 7:25 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#119462"><em>In reply to Tallin:</em></a></blockquote><p>With Windows you need to have your account in each device in order to share anything. Furthermore, in Windows Phone you could not share anything since only one account can be in the device. So either all your family phones had your account has active, accessing you email and all or you could share nothing. That is not good either. </p><p>Still this same same trick you use with Windows one can use with Apple. (iOS and OSX). With a difference, it actually works in iOS because you Purchase Account (iTunes Account) can be different from the User Account (iCloud Account) int the device when in Windows Phone it needed to be the same and only supported one active account.</p><p>Anyway, Family Sharing is the official Apple way of sharing. The advantage over this is that you don't need your account spread across all the devices.</p><p>In the case of Plex you can subscribe to Plex Pass in their site and unlock the all thing across the board as long as each your family members use the same Plex Account.</p><p>I agree with it a bummer in-app purchase are not in the Family Share. But the workaround above works in iOS … I personally don't use it has I don't make in-app purchases.</p><p>Cheers.</p><p>PS: I think Family Share not covering in App Purchases was a way for developers to avoid it all together. Don't know. It is just odd that It does not cover in app purchases.</p>

      • Tallin

        01 June, 2017 - 2:32 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#119468"><em>In reply to nbplopes:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>In Windows Phone it was one account per phone, but with Windows 10 Mobile you can sign in on a per app basis, just like in full Windows. Not sure how long this has been there, actually, since I've never attempted to do it before, but it works on the latest builds. Anyway, I remember there being some issues with the implementation on iOS as compared to Windows, but it's been a while since I've dealt with it.</p><p><br></p><p>And shared calendars, photos, notes, etc. are really easy to do in the Microsoft ecosystem. Not sure why you had such trouble, been doing it for years with my wife. Also, after setting up family accounts for Windows 10, you can also manage child account time limits and block/allow only certain websites.</p>

  • screen23

    13 July, 2017 - 2:55 pm

    <p>ThanksI t is good when we can generate <a href="http://freerobuxgen.com/&quot; target="_blank">free robux</a> online to have the resources. people has wasted many dollars in gaming reosurces like tix and robux but with the free robux generator you can get the roblox game.</p>

  • zodole

    27 November, 2017 - 6:21 am

    <p>asdf</p>

  • ashu22

    19 February, 2018 - 5:33 am

    <p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">amazing online game in which we can play games. </span><a href="http://robloxrobuxtix.com/&quot; target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Roblox Robux</a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> is a technique by which I could get free robux and can do anything I want.</span></p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC