Lollipop Camera APIs Will Never Arrive on Nexus 4 and on Many Other Smartphones

Many people including us was waiting for the Nexus 4 to support new camera API's of Lollipop  because everyone knows that this device don't have an great camera, but now Google is to confirm: on ' issue tracker for Android, some users asked for support for new camera API Lollipop for Nexus 4
In response to the request to bring the Camera2 API to the Nexus 4 on Issue 82219 on the Google Code Issue tracker, a Google employee responded by saying:
Unfortunately, the Nexus 4 will not be updated beyond LEGACY camera2 level support.
Its hardware and firmware were not designed to support the full feature set provided by camera2, including manual controls and DNG support, support longer available and can not be retroactively added to it.
The Nexus 5, 6 support all the major features of the new API; the Nexus 9 supports manual controls, but does not support DNG.
Whether non-Nexus devices support the new features camera2 is up to the manufacturers Of Those devices at this point; retrofitting camera2 support is a major effort, as it Generally Requires a near-total rewrite of the room HAL module (Essentially, the driver) for a Particular device. Certainly we are encouraging manufacturers to Undertake That effort, but on many existing devices, the hardware is simply not capable of supporting features like burst capture, or RAW sensor output.
So only Nexus 5 and Nexus 6 fully supports the new API (even Nexus 9, which has manual controls but can not shoot in DNG) because of the hardware that device has.

That's real sad and makes everything clear, the two current nexus smartphone has supported API's we also hope in future that Smartphone manufacturer makes the hardware supportable to the API's.

SOURCE Google

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