I'm developing an app that uses a the android camera but not the default camera, I am using a custom one. Everything seem to be fine on my testing device (a local manufactured smart phone). But I'm having problems when it comes to high end devices like Samsung and Sony Xperia, some models from these devices are working fine but with other models no luck (specially large size devices). I guess that the errors are caused by different camera hardware since each android devices has its own hardware camera different with other devices (correct me if im wrong).
But I'm wondering how did INSTAGRAM do this trick that their camera is compatible with almost every android phones. Did they used any library or something? Please help me if you know how they did the trick. And is there any standards like on what device should I start developing so if I test my app on other high end device there would be no problems. Also please give me links of standard custom camera that works on every kind of android devices.
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I am building an application with React Native but the app not working well on a few android devices. So I need to see what's going wrong but I don't know how to set up an emulator for a specific device. Are these problems depends on phone's brand and model or it just depends on their android versions?
Its not really possible. There's two major problems:
Software. Real devices don't ship pure AOSP like runs on the emulator. They add patches and features and there's no way to know what they actually run.
Custom UIs. Many phones provide custom UIs like TouchWhiz and the like which can override Android behavior
Hardware. If your app depends on things that are very hardware specific, like GPS or Camera, they could have issues due to hardware bugs.
If you just want to emulate a specific OS version like KitKat, or specific low memory conditions its possible via emulator configuration. If you really need to test on a device, either buy one or use a service that allows you remote control over specific devices. Amazon has a nice device farm that you can rent over AWS.
One of the biggest challenges when developing for Android is the wide variety of devices and "optimizations" manufacturers make to their Android versions.
The Android emulator is based on AOSP (vanilla Android) and was only recently published with Google services included. This is the most clean version of Android. You can use the emulator to test UI scaling for different screen sizes but it will always behave like an AOSP Android. Google packs a bunch of hardware configurations into Android Studio which you can simply select when creating an virtual device. You can always create a custom hardware profile with custom screen size and resolution. Some manufacturers also change the DPI value of the OS causing the UI to be bigger or smaller, keep this in mind when creating a custom hardware configuration.
Further, you can use the emulator to test the default behaviour on different Android versions. Again, manufacturers change their Android usually causing slightly different behaviour.
I assume that your question is focussed on different behaviour of e.g. Samsung phones having crashes only occuring in Samsung phones (Samsung can be exchanged with any other brand here). Unfortunately, there is no simple way to test this but getting your hands on the faulty device. One option is to use a cloud based test lab (e.g. Firebase Test Lab, App Center or AWS device farm) to test your code on the faulty device or rent the device at a local shop. Most bigger cities have companies renting phones and tablets on a daily or weekly basis.
In the end you will need if statements checking for a specific device, manufacturer or Android version or any combination of them and doing something slightly different to fix the undesired behaviour.
I know that this is not the answer you are looking for, but it's the best I can offer. To tell a little tale of my worst experience: I had once a bug were calling a crypto function caused a kernel panic on HTC (?) phones. This means the user opened my app and the phone rebooted. I was required to implement the entire encryption logic again just for HTC with Android 6.0.
I'm wondering if the Sony Camera API has parts that are only supported by certain versions of Android.
I have the latest firmware (1.04) on my a6500 and running Android 7 on LineageOS (successor of CyanogenMod) for the Samsung S5 (KLTE version). This is what I get in my Play Memories app:
The shutter button works and images download to the phone. But that's it.
Additionally, when I use another app called DSLRDashboard, the settings show up and can be changed on the app, but they don't get changed or applied on the camera, and this is in full manual mode on the camera. Other modes don't work either.
What could be causing this? What would need to be added into a 3rd party ROM like LineageOS to get this working?
Really hoping that the official Sony developers that roam this site will be able to chime in.
So, a bit of a snafu on my part.
It's not enough to update just the firmware on the Sony camera. The Remote Control app installed in the camera must also be updated as well, which means hooking the camera up to WiFi and downloading the updates for that app. With that done, all the settings appear in the phone app and can the changed.
I realize this question has been asked and answered several times in the past. Many of the answers were out dated and a bit nebulous, so I have decided to ask again. I am working on a project that requires me access both the front and the rear cameras on an android device simultaneously.
I have tried this using the deprecated CAMERA api using Jens Grubert's AndroidDualCameraCapture. I have also tried the using camera2 API and the Samsung SCamera api on Samsung devices. I have run test apps across multiple devices including Moto X, S5, S6, S6 Edge, S7, S8, Pixel, and Lenovo Tango. In all of my test cases, I have not been able to access both the front and rear camera simultaneously.
I have scoured many of the previous questions on this topic:
Using both front and back cameras simultaneously android
access both front and back camera simultaneously on samsung galaxy devices
Is it possible to use front and back Camera at same time in Android
Access both back and front cameras simultaneously
Opening of Front Camera and Back Camera simultaneously?
Are there any Android Devices or any method can open front and back camera at the same time?
While many of these questions list older Phones that have been proven to work, such as the HTC M8, and Nexus 6, I'm wondering if anybody has successfully accessed both cameras on a modern Android Device. If you have, I would love to know the specific device that you have working and what API you are using.
I own the LG V20...it allows up to 4 separate screens. 2 front and 2 back
that's something devices independent and "rom" independent, I got a vivo x20 with android 7.0 work, but android 8.0 no way
I know this question has been asked before but its been a long time. Asking this question again to gather any new hacks/thoughts/approaches.
I need to access both front and back camera simultaneously.
So far I have tried implementations using android camera API (Dual Camera- by Jens) and camera2 API. Both implementations work fine on devices having hardware support(Dual Image Signal Processors) for dual camera feature.I have tested and both implementations works fine on HTC one M8(Snapdragon 801) & Xiaomi Mi4(Snapdragon 801).
Both implementations fails on Samsung s6 even though it's hardware capable (Exynos 7420 has dual ISP). Also, the default camera app on S6 supports dual camera mode.
Any ideas/advice on this ?
Thanks in advance.
Update:18/11/2015 --> Tried using the Samsung Galaxy Camera SDK but still no luck.
I had to implement the exact same thing in a previous project. I know the struggle, and I know how much code you have to write to make this work. Especially with Google providing TWO camera apis (camera and camera2).
Even though I got it working on some devices (like HTC M8) which basically had two Image Signal Processor (necessary to access both cameras at the same time), I had trouble with the Samsung devices that had this feature implemented in their native camera application.
Then I turned around and found out that Samsung provides different special APIs for its "very special" OS. What that means, is that for every special feature that Samsung has (like the finger print sensor, the S-pen, and soooo on), they provide a API for the developers to work with.
I found the SCamera API on their site here . They also provide very good documentation and it is ok to implement.
The question you need to ask yourself: is it really worth it to integrate yet another camera API in your app to make this work on Samsung devices as well? Take in consideration that the proportion of Samsung devices is really high.
My advice? Try and implement it in a different project and see how that goes. If you get it to work in a decent amount of time and it's not very complicated, then integrate it in your main project.
I hope this helps you. Have a great day and good luck!
I am an iphone application developer, all iphones have very similar Operating systems, and the size and everything is the same, so I don't need to create applications specific for each iphone.
But with android there are different phones, different sizes, So How can I possibly know that my app works, and looks fine on all these devices
I don't already own an android but I completed my first application using the simulator. Which android phone do u suggest for testing? I am an AT&T user and Iuse an iphone. Can I simply insert my sim-card in the new android to be able to test my app on the device?
The android virtual device lets you change the virtual hardware to match all of the current shipping phones. There are ways to receive device crash reports from a shipped application to help diagnose force closes or other grievous errors.
You need an unlocked phone to use another SIM card. The Nexus One is available unlocked out of the gate, and comes with an AT&T version. The only AT&T (as sold by AT&T) Android phone (Backflip) is stupidly crippled and should be avoided. You can also buy an Android Dev Phone, which is currently "middle of the pack" in terms of hardware. You can also easily find numerous other Android capable handsets - pick depending on your target market. Some phones are now old: for instance, the G1 is on its way out.
you won't need to worry about different screen size . take a look at Supporting Multiple Screen article . I'm not sure for the late ones because I'm also working with Android Emulator .
1 - Take a look at this Google IO session for load of tips on making your app work across devices. It's not that hard at all really
2 - I'd recommend the Nexus One if you need a phone just to develop on. It's representative of what you'll be seeing in devices in the coming years. If you want a current representative phone take a look at the HTC Legend (Mid-end) or the HTC Wildfire (Low-end). There's also the Droid and things like that but you can only get them on Verizon I think. I'm not too knowledgeable about availability in the US, I'm from the UK.