Leaked Hero 5 manual details GoPro’s upcoming cloud service

Leaked Hero 5 manual details GoPro’s upcoming cloud service ,

Earlier today I wrote about some leaked images of GoPro’s upcoming Hero 5, as well as some specs that came from an allegedly leaked user manual for the camera. Now we’ve actually gotten our hands on a PDF file of that manual. While most of the feature specs were already covered by this Reddit thread, one thing stuck out: information about GoPro’s upcoming cloud service, which will be called GoPro Plus.

The name GoPro Plus actually leaked on Reddit a little more than a month ago when someone stumbled across an (apparently accidentally posted) sign-up page for the service. And CEO Nick Woodman (along with some other GoPro employees) explained the broad strokes of how the service is supposed to work to me when I profiled the company’s growing software efforts back in May.

The manual — which, to be clear, is incomplete, and has some spelling errors — offers more concrete details. Here’s the page that describes GoPro Plus:

First off, this implies that the Hero 5 will be cloud-connected. Considering the camera’s only other blockbuster-ish features appear to be waterproofing and voice commands, this will be a big selling point for GoPro.

The gist is you have to plug your camera in, let it charge all the way (ugh), and then your camera will automatically upload all your footage to your GoPro Plus account. (There’s no info in the manual — or any of the other specs leaked today, for that matter — that points to the Hero 5 offering cellular connectivity, so this will likely be done over Wi-Fi. That also implies there won’t be live-streaming capabilities.) From there, you can download the footage (or photos) using something called ‘Capture,’ which sounds like a revamped / renamed version of the GoPro mobile app. Then, you can edit that footage on essentially any device by using either the Quik or Splice mobile apps or something new called “Quik for Desktop.”

Automatic upload, edit anywhere

One of the things I wrote about in that piece from May was how GoPro was working a new desktop editing experience, one that rivaled the easy and essentially automatic editing experience that the Quik mobile app offers. Internally, the team called this experience “Storyteller,” but judging from this new info it appears that the new desktop editor will share the Quik branding, which is no surprise. What’s curious, though, is that it sounds like you have to download the files, which might mean you can’t start editing on one device and then finish the edit on another.

There’s probably more to the GoPro Plus experience — I’d guess it will work with the company’s forthcoming drone, Karma, as well — so we’ll have to wait and see what the company reveals later this year. I’ll admit that cloud services can be boring to talk about, but this is going to be a big focus for GoPro going forward. Listening to Nick Woodman talk about the increasingly software-focused future of his company this spring, it was easy to tell how badly he wants GoPro to be a company that’s about more than just hard goods. He wants GoPro to become a platform. GoPro Plus will be the first big step in that direction — and, depending on the pricing structure, it could also be a big new source of revenue.