Nexus 9 also misses out on some of the goodness

Dec 22, 2014 07:59 GMT  ·  By

Android 5.0 Lollipop rolled out into the wild a few weeks ago for owners of the Nexus 4 and we showed you what the new build looked like onboard the smartphone in a screenshot tour you can check out right here.

Anyway, while most of the time the arrival of a software update gets users excited pretty quickly, not all is peachy when the Nexus 4 and Lollipop are concerned.

Not so long ago, we told you that some owners of the Nexus 4 (the problem is not widespread and affects select devices) had been reporting having some issues with the dialer following the update, which made it impossible for them to even place phone calls.

Nexus 4 on Lollipop: a little less than what was hoped for

But now it appears that on top these problems, Nexus 4 owners will be missing out on some new functions brought about by the Lollipop update.

According to a post found on the Google Issue Tracker, some of the new camera APIs which arrived with Android 5.0 won’t be available on the smartphone in question. We’re talking about things like full manual controls and DNG support.

This is what Google writes:

“Unfortunately, the Nexus 4 will not be updated beyond LEGACY camera2 level support. Its hardware and firmware were not designed to support the full feature set provided by camera2, including manual controls and DNG support, and such support cannot be added retroactively to it.”

Nexus 9 is also affected by the inconvenience

So basically, the Nexus 4’s outdated hardware and software system gets blamed for the inconvenience. However, in an odd twist of events, the Nexus 9 (which is a tablet barely two months old) will be missing out on the DNG support thing. However, the tablet will still get full manual controls.

It’s a real shame, especially for photography enthusiasts, that these features won’t be making their way onboard of the Nexus 4, but given the fact that owners of the device have lived without them for so long, the disappointment shouldn't be all that massive.

As for the Nexus 5, owners shouldn’t have any problems taking advantage of the new camera features.

As for other non-Nexus devices, it will be up to the manufacturer to decide whether to provide support for the new camera2 features, because the addition involved a near-total rewrite of the camera HAL module.

However, if the device is not capable of supporting features like burst capture or RAW sensor output, you won’t be seeing things like manual controls be enabled on your device when Lollipop arrives.

Nexus 4 on Android 5.0 Lollopop (5 Images)

Android 5.0 Lollipop on Nexus 4
Nexus 4 got Lollipop a while agoNexus 4 on Lollipop, browsing Google Play
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