Another week, another HTC application is released into the Google Play Store. This week, its the turn of the HTC Camera application (and as you can see from the image above, updates to HTC Zoe and HTC BlinkFeed too, which have been released for some time). Just last week I reported that the HTC Weather has been unbundled from the operating system. To recap, allowing users to update applications from the Google Play Store effectively divorces security and feature improvements from a new firmware update. This removes the need for complicated testing by the manufacturer and of course, the carrier. Some carriers take months to approve a comparatively minor update, whilst including their bloat applications so allowing users to upgrade the application independently from the operating system shortens the lead time between new features or security improvements from being announced and arriving on the device. This is a very good thing.
Today, then, HTC have released their Camera application, then. As with most third party camera applications, the HTC Camera version is not so different here. This version of the application comes with all of the HTC Eye Experience features, which we talked about here. It sounds a silly feature to be able to say “cheese” or “capture” to take a photograph and one that my cat pretty quickly got bored of, actually it can be nifty when you’re trying to compose the shot. The selfie smile-detection function is handy if you smile at your ‘phone and in general use. And I’ve not been the biggest fan of selfies, but seeing as I’m growing a moustache for Movember, I have been encouraged to take a few more selfies: HTC’s improvements to the Camera make this a little bit easier. Check out the selfie improvements here:
For all the knock that HTC take about their camera, I’ve found my One M8 to be satisfactory. It’s as good as I expect for a smartphone camera and punches way better than the low-sounding 4 MP resolution would have me suspect. The improvements that HTC have included are very much incremental, but they’re improvements nevertheless.