Gadgetory

hello again ladies and gentlemen I'm Joe handy the Android authority app guide so Google released Google camera to the Google Play Store today and we're going to check it out right now okay so this is a camera app which means it does camera app things like taking videos and pictures the camera app comes with five modes including panorama mode photosphere mode regular camera mode regular video mode and a new thing called lens flare mode the regular video and camera modes are pretty much self-explanatory panorama and photosphere mode are a little wonky to use but once you get used to it you can take some really good photos with them it works by starting out with a single image and then you must follow the dots to create a complete panorama or photosphere depending on whether or not you have high quality or low quality enabled in the settings it can take a minute or two to process everything but the photos usually come out looking really good lens blur mode allows you to take a picture that keeps the subject of your photo in focus while making the background blurry this is a popular depth of field effect that is enjoyed predominantly by people who have DSLR cameras if the blur is too much or too little you can adjust the level of blur after the photo is taken and that's really it folks there is a settings menu where you can adjust various resolutions and quality settings I wasn't able to find any options to change the storage location if you were wondering about that but essentially this is Google camera for a camera application it's fairly well designed you can change your camera mode at any point by sliding to the right from anywhere and the modes will slide out from the left side if you want to view any photos you've taken you simply slide your finger to the left and it'll open the most recently taken photo it's worth noting that this doesn't come with a gallery application so you'll need to supply your own or go get google photos if you want the complete Google experience the settings are set up in a way that is easy to understand they seem a little bare-bones but you can adjust the front and rear facing camera resolution turn location on and off and turn on manual exposure if you need it there are other fun little design choices when you zoom in and out using pinch to zoom you see two little bars that will show you how sumed in the camera is at the bottom are some quick setting icons for flash exposure changing from front facing to rear facing cameras and an icon to add a three by three grid panorama mode lens blur mode and photosphere mode are really fun and easy to use the camera guides you to taking some really good photos and although rendering and processing can take a while the results usually look quite nice the interface is really simple and easy-to-use you're never more than a swipe or click away from pretty much anything inside of the application switching modes is as simple as sliding the options out and clicking on them the quick settings accessing the gallery and pretty much everything is right there just off screen for easy access it does what it says it does all of the features worked as intended I personally didn't experience any crashes or issues once you learn how the various modes work there shouldn't be any problems using them finally there are little design things that are just fun the dual line zoom meter bar thing is fun to use and when you're in video mode it'll try to get you to shoot in landscape mode by using a spinning icon to prevent you from shooting in portrait mode you can still shoot in portrait mode but let's face it no one likes it when people shoot in portrait mode and it appears as though Google is trying to remind people of that and here's what we didn't like so much its simplicity is its greatest strengths but it's also its greatest weakness if you're used to having more complicated settings of other camera applications then this is going to feel a bit lacking for some people you can adjust ISO white balance there are no filters and there are no features like image stabilisation it's really a pretty basic application some people have already begun experiencing some bug's there isn't a single bug that's affecting everyone but little things that are affecting a number of people one such experience that I've heard a few times is the app crashing when trying to use lens blur mode I haven't had any of these issues myself but apparently they do exist depending on your device and version of Kit Kat the last problem I want to talk about is the lack of options when it comes to storage if you have a device that has an external SD card like I do you cannot use it for storage in fact you can't change the storage location at all this is likely because of the Kit Kat SD card limitation problem that a lot of people don't like so I hope your internal memory card has enough space because that is where your photos are going to go over all this is a solid camera application it brings a lot of those nifty Google camera only features like photosphere to devices that don't normally have that feature available the design is breathtakingly fresh and enjoyable and nothing about Google camera is difficult to use the only issue seems to be a few bugs that people are experiencing that said I do hope more features get integrated eventually because it is very simple but almost a little too simple Ronna may do from Ars Technica did an app teardown and Found code hinting to an advanced settings feature that I totally hope becomes a reality and a time-lapse feature that also sounds fairly cool here's hoping those get introduced in future updates until then Google camera is a great application as long as you keep things in perspective it doesn't give you the level of control of other applications but you really get that vibe that it's not supposed to if you're looking for something a little different in a camera application it's definitely worth downloading this one to give it a shot once again I'm Joe handy the Android Authority I don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you want to check out android authority of myself or the rest of the video crew you can find our social media links in the video description below if you're hanging out for a minute we have a couple of awesome videos for you to watch right over there including the best applications of March 2014 as well as Jace Brothers latest Android Authority Q&A finally don't forget to check out the written companion in the video description below for the download link as always thank you for watching and have a wonderful day