Find out if your phone supports advanced camera functions: this app tells you

Do you want to know if your mobile can take advantage of all the advantages of its cameras with other applications apart from the official one? CameraX Info shows you which Camera API extensions are available to developers; find out if your mobile can take advantage of photography apps.

Android mobiles integrate camera functions accessible by an API or an application programming interface, a system that acts as a bridge between applications and capture hardware. This bridge has evolved with the different versions of Android: from the Camera1 API to the most recent CameraX; through Camera2. This API allows third-party apps to easily access advanced camera features. And it is not a bad idea to know if your mobile offers these functions.

If you pass the app test, you might be surprised

With the Camera API, Google has introduced a tool on Android that makes it easier for all developers to create camera apps. Now well, most mobile manufacturers do not enable API for third-party apps; which prevents these applications from taking photos with the full potential of the camera.

Perhaps you installed an app other than the one that came standard with your Android and discovered that the photos captured by it were of lower quality than any you’ve taken with the standard camera. And the API is one of the culprits: if the manufacturer does not provide access to the sensors and the FAI (Image Signal Processor), only the application that you have created strictly for the phone will take advantage of all the qualities of the cameras. That’s why it’s a good idea to know what level of access your phone offers before looking for capture apps.

To know all the details of the cameras to which a third-party application has access, it is better to use another application: CameraX Info, it takes care of reading all the capture extensions available to represent them in a table what advanced photography features are becoming available. Even Google blocks most APIs on its Pixels.

After installing the app and giving proper access to the camera to read information, CameraX Info will display all active API extensions for third-party apps in different tables. The more red crosses there are, the less the mobile is compatible with the API; which will result in poorer photos if non-standard applications are used.

It’s surprising that Android makers block access to an API that should make it easier to take photos regardless of the app. CameraX Info not only uncovers this inconvenience, it also allows you to download the results to create a database with the most restrictive cell phone brands and models. All in one free app, no ads and based on open source: Your GitHub is accessible to everyone. CameraX Info is available on Google Play.

More information | Zacharee’s GitHub
Through | XDA Developers

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Find out if your phone supports advanced camera functions: this app tells you

was originally published in

Android updates

by Ivan Linares.