Rumors about Google separating Photos from Google+ have been floating around the Internet for a long time. A report from Bloomberg from last week indicated that the new photo sharing service will also allow users to share photos to Facebook and Twitter directly.

With Google I/O all set to be held later this week, it is likely that we will see Google announce its new Photo sharing service at the event.

Thanks to the folks over at AndroidPolice though, we now have our first look at the new standalone Photos app for Android. The new app looks similar to the current Google+ Photos app, though Google has made some changes and added new features to it.

When you launch the app for the first time, you are greeted with a splash screen which is followed by the app explaining its features and use case. Once you skip past the introduction, you will be greeted with the familiar UI of the existing Google+ Photos app. Google has added some new “views” to the app that makes it easier to view your photos by sorting them according to month or days, or a “comfortable view’ that simply displays all your photos by categorizing them in days.

Google will apparently also be renaming the Auto Awesome feature to “Assistant.” While it will continue to automatically ‘auto awesome’ your photos and videos, it will now also be possible to manually create them. The editing UI of the app has also been updated, though it has not gained any new features.

It is likely that the new Photos service from Google will be accessible from photos.google.com, which currently redirects to Google+ Photos page.

Google+ might not have been as big a hit as Google might have hoped for, but the social network service has managed to give Android and iOS users one of the best photo backup and sharing service tools. By separating Photos from Google+, the company will make it possible for more users to take advantage of the service who were reluctant to sign up on a new social networking website just to backup their photos.