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The app should have come with a notification that the “Is Your Portrait In A Museum” feature is only available in some states. I can’t believe it’s not available in Texas, and apparently not in Illinois either! Think of all the kids who are missing out on this great chance to get connected with Art History through a trending tech app. And for what? Because Google doesn’t want to be the boogeyman about scanning people’s face biometrics? Sad. Look, people are only scared of that when info gets kept secretly, or when things aren’t disclosed. Ironically, by not letting users in Texas and Illinois know that that feature isn’t available upfront, they’re promoting a technological paranoia. This works against everything they’re trying to do, and wastes everyone’s time (like mine, writing this review.)

Google needs to own up to what they’re doing with biometric face scans, and either address the issue with Texas residents or remove the feature altogether. Banning an entire state from using the features on their app is exclusionist, and I doubt if Google’s intentions were pure that they would refrain from simply including a legal notice for Texas residents (based on state laws, TX residents have the right to know what biometric face scans are used for; Google refuses to comply with this, and instead they just opted out entire LARGE state out of this app’s premier feature.) I’ve never been disappointed in a Google product—until now (okay, Google+ sucked too). I’m considering trading in my Google Home for an Apple Speaker, if Google doesn’t improve transparency with its users. This is absurd.

Nothing is wrong with the content itself; but I haven’t even been using the app for more than ten minutes and I would say the overall usability is… strange. For one, there’s no ‘dark’ mode. I study art even while I’m in bed, which makes it important for me to be able to use dark mode as a way to avoid the extra eye strain. Secondly, there’s no way for me to go back to the homepage! I don’t know if this experience is exclusive to the iPad; but you would think that having a back button would be the norm for all apps - especially those produced by one of the largest companies on the internet. When I enter my settings, I don’t see any way to access the homepage. There is no quick access menu anywhere onscreen. Swiping anywhere across the screen to switch back also does not work. I would have to go back to the main page by exiting the app and forcing it to close. I highly recommend the app for the art itself, but the UX needs work. If the app missed having these two basic functions (which could be noticed in minutes) i don’t doubt that the issues stop there.