14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia has released its official Android Camera app in the Google Play Store, enabling faster and more frequent updates for buyers of its devices.
The Play store listing does not allow any other devices than Nokia to download and install the Nokia Camera app, and it’s because the Finnish manufacturer hasn’t published the app to make it available for everyone, but only to improve update distribution for its devices.
In other words, Nokia is using the Google Play Store to ship updates to Nokia Android smartphones faster and easier, without having to bundle camera improvements in OS updates.
This procedure typically involves more steps and requires users to reboot their devices, while the Google Play Store distribution system is substantially faster and enables updates without the need for a restart.
Lumia UI expected in future update
A couple of weeks ago, HMD Global, Nokia’s new parent company that tries to keep the Finnish phone maker alive, purchased the camera UI patent from Microsoft. This means that at some point, the Nokia Camera app is very likely to resemble the one on Windows phones, which Nokia itself created before collapsing under Microsoft’s umbrella.
The radial menus being used in the Windows phone Camera app come in handy when adjusting camera settings like ISO, exposure time, and aperture, so they are particularly useful for photographers who want to enhance their pictures with manual settings.
There’s a chance that Nokia is aiming for the same thing with its Camera app, though we expect only the flagships to benefit from such an addition, mostly because they would be the only ones featuring Zeiss optics and more advanced cameras.
The existing Nokia 3, for instance, offers just average camera performance and it’s hard to be impressed with it, so such manual controls would make no sense at all. We’ll be posting our own Nokia 3 review during the weekend, so keep an eye on Softpedia to find out more about Nokia’s entry-level model.