Samsung is doing a better job than Google at supporting Google’s own camera standards
Third-party camera applications on Android are complicated. Google’sCamera2 API and the CameraX Jetpack support libraryexist in order to streamline support for your phone’s camera hardware inside third-party apps, but both require support from OEMs—which isn’t mandatory. You’d think Google’s own phones would support those standards and libraries, but it looks like that’s not something you can expect out of the company that develops and maintains the Android operating system. Instead, it looks like Samsung is beating Google at its own game.
As pointed out by developer Zachary Wander onTwitter, firing up a CameraX info app he made shows that all CameraX extensions, like bokeh and HDR, are unsupported on all the camera sensors in Google’s newly releasedPixel 6a. We spoke to him and found that he went on to further test this on an olderPixel 4a, and it’s an identical story.
AP alum Max Weinbach points outon Twitterthat while Google doesn’t seem to support these camera standards, Samsung’s doing a swell job at it. All features are shown as supported on Samsung’s cameras, in stark contrast to what can be observed on Google’s own phone or phones from other OEMs like the OnePlus 10 Pro.
We tried out the app by ourselves, and found that not even ourPixel 6 Pro, Google’s crème de la crème, is spared from this absurdity — it’s still a sea of unsupported extensions. Meanwhile, ourGalaxy S22 Ultrais in formidable shape, supporting all extensions across its four rear camera sensors.
As a matter of fact, asMishaal Rahman points out, Google’s own documentation shows thatnoPixel phones properly support CameraX extensions. That Google itself is seemingly unwilling to put in the legwork to make sure the cameras in its phones are compliant with its own standards isn’t agreatlook, and it seems like a bad omen for third-party camera app support on Android as a whole. We’ve reached out to Google for comment and will update this post with any new information we receive.
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