Trivia- Standard Camera app features vary depending on OEM
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Microsoft’s Camera app is one of the stock Windows Phone apps that is often ignored by users. This is mostly because of the proliferation of replacement OEM apps which take more advantage of the hardware. For example, users of Lumia devices overlook this app in lieu of Lumia Camera and HTC and Samsung users for HTC and Ativ Camera respectively. The Microsoft camera app has some advantages over the others, while not in functionality, but in speed and reliability. I personally preferred using Microsoft Camera and Camera 360 Sight on my 735 as opposed to Lumia Camera as both were often faster and did work when I needed them to.
Anyway, during MWC 15 as you surely noticed, I had a lot of time to go through several Microsoft partner devices and one strange thing I noticed was that while they each had, on the surface, the same Microsoft camera app. The app was different according to OEM, and not just because of missing hardware like flash and front facing shooters.
Acer’s Camera app had several live filters added on it. What this does is that it allows one to compose a shot and preview a filter of their choice simultaneously. That’s not a bad capability -especially in an Instagram world – and would be even better when paired with as decent camera like that of well, every Lumia device above the 635.
Other features absent on Lumia Phones include the ability to control the output resolution of the photos, anti-banding support, and more scenes present than the paltry 5 included in the Microsoft camera app shipped on Lumia Phones. Whether these features were stripped from Lumia devices to allow OEM Camera apps to shine comparatively or OEMs were allowed to customize the OS’s Camera app is irrelevant in this case.
The end result remains the same with some devices possessing a subset of features and others possessing a different subset of features.
In the end however, many Lumia owners swear by Lumia Camera and some would have never made use of the features offered by Microsoft Camera rendering this fragmentation – for lack of a better word – largely trivial in nature.
Would you prefer Microsoft Camera to be more full featured or rather rely on your OEM camera app? Let us know in the comments below
