Android P Developer Preview 4 is out and it comes with smaller app updates, and Google Camera is one of them. However, it doesn’t seem to have any live changes, it does have hints of many new features to come, including the much-anticipated RAW support, corrections to wide-angle distortion, multi-channel audio and more.
The addition of RAW support was spotted lying underneath almost two full years ago in the Google Camera v3.2 teardown app version. But somehow the feature never made it to the final version. However, we are now back at it again and this time things are looking slightly more concrete. This time there is even a tutorial text that explains RAW saves as a DNG file and suggestions of using a suitable photo editor that understands the format, and that shooting in raw will consume more storage space.
Google Camera is said to be gaining a new feature dubbed as a ‘correction to wide-angle distortion.’ This feature in Google’s Camera app is very specific about fixing distortion on faces. However, it is still not clear if these fixes are achieved through some magical algorithm, or if it’s sticking to the more conventional pixel-stretching approach.
Google also seems to be adding a new “auto” setting to its framerate selector for video. However, there are two lines with the names that make it clear this is an automatic setting, but then again, it contains ‘placeholder’ text, so this feature might be not named completely yet. An automatic framerate might allow the phone to pick a speed that will get the best exposure, especially in dark or bright settings.
Lastly, the app also hints about a shiny new feature; multi-channel audio and it has code for controlling two modes; IMAX_AUDIO and MICROPHONE. Since most phones come with a secondary microphone for noise canceling while they’re in speakerphone mode. So, it can now be used to have some sense of direction in videos especially for sound coming from the camera. Since the new update is from Android P, you should be running on the latest Android P beta for the camera app to function. You can download the APK from here.