One of the accusations often leveled at the majority of Android smartphones is that they often don’t make the best cameras. Granted there are the exceptions to the rule, but right now many would say that Nokia is leading the way when it comes to taking the best photos with a smartphone, perhaps followed by Apple.
In fact, Nokia has taken things a little further by being the first smartphone maker to not just compress its images into JPEGs, but to also save the original image in RAW format. For those that like to have the very best image possible, RAW images are the holy grail. Unfortunately, Nokia is the only company to offer such a thing. At least, so far.
News is currently circulating around the Internet that Google is currently working on bringing RAW image capture to devices running on its Android mobile operating system, which may potentially go some way to placating those asking for more pictorial prowess from their smartphones.
Code spotted by developer Josh Brown suggests that there may be an API on the horizon that will add RAW capability to Android camera apps in the future, and while that code is a month old it’s currently unknown when or even if it will make its way into a final, shipping product.
A second snippet of code also suggests that stock support for modular and external cameras may be on its way to Android, although that claim is less solid than the previous one. Fans of Sony’s QX10 and QX100 will no doubt be interested to hear the news regardless.
Bringing RAW support to Android would certainly give it a competitive edge over its main competition in the shape of the iPhone and that’s never a bad thing not just for Google, but for its hardware partners also. We’d be surprised if we saw RAW implementation soon, but fingers crossed we won’t have to wait too long until we can start filling our internal storage with those huge photos of dogs, cats, and our breakfasts!
Do you think RAW image support in Android will take things on the positive side of the fence? Or do you think that it’s somewhat of a gimmick and it’s all about lenses and larger pixels on a camera sensor? Leave your thoughts with us.
(Source: Josh Brown [Google+]) (via: ArsTechnica)
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