Meet Focal, the New Camera App For CyanogenMod

A few days ago, the CyanogenMod teamed teased a new project named Nemesis, a series of planned improvements to the user interface. An anonymous reader writes with news of the first part: a new camera application designed to replace the neglected stock Android camera app. From the article: "As cameras and camera software becomes an increasingly important part of our mobile experience, a great photography experience on your smartphone can make all the difference. The CyanogenMod project has decided to take smartphone photography a lot more seriously with the release of Focal, and all new camera app for CM users everywhere." Android Police also has an early look with screenshots. The menu system in particular looks a lot nicer to use than the current cumbersome interface to white balance/exposure/scene settings. Focal should be merged into nightly releases soon.

i like cyanogenmod..but...

[wbr1]

I own 4 smartphones of various age. None are officially supported. They all have unofficial ports in various stages, but guess what? It's the camera that is normally broken due to no drivers from the manufacturer. This is a deal breaker for me as I use my camera for work daily.

I wish it were otherwise.

Re:i like cyanogenmod..but...

[h4rr4r]

Sounds like you made some pretty poor choices.
Here is a list of devices with that sort of stuff available:
https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/drivers [google.com]

Buying devices without drivers available is voting with your dollars for this to continue. If you want it to stop you have to take some responsibility.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the "Well, you should have bought supported hardware" response. You can put that next to the "Well, why don't you code it yourself?" response in the library of catch-all catty answers to any criticism of OSS.

You can probably just sum it all up with "OSS is perfect, anyone who criticizes it is just holding it wrong!!!!"

Re:i like cyanogenmod..but...

[h4rr4r]

This hardware does not support OSS, if you wanted OSS you should have bought hardware that supported it.

By what magic is OSS going to work when drivers are missing and there is no released documentation?

Re:

[Stratus311]

It's a pretty valid response. If your phone isn't supported, then nobody else gives enough of a shit to support it so if that's the case, then you should do it yourself.

Re:

[knarf]

That is a silly response to a sensible answer. If you don't understand why, please think about it for a moment or two. Think about the open software development model in relation to closed, proprietary hardware.

Still don't understand why your answer does not make sense?

Here is a black box. The box can be made to produce sound. I'm not going to tell you how to prod it to make sound because that is my very own secret. Now you make it produce sound.

What? No sound? Why not?

What do you mean 'no idea how to make

Re:

[rhizome]

Ah, the "Well, you should have bought supported hardware" response. You can put that next to the "Well, why don't you code it yourself?" response in the library of catch-all catty answers to any criticism of OSS.

Sure, but your point here appears to boil down to, "Well, why doesn't CyanogenMod code it for me?" You know, if CM is so great and everything.

Kind of a "catty calling the cattle black" situation, if you ask me.

Re:

[mutube]

"catty calling the cattle black"

Whaaaaaat.....?

This has to win an award for the most mis-heard idiom ever.

Re:i like cyanogenmod..but...

[crtreece]

You should have returned Cyanogenmod to the place of purchase and demanded a 100% refund due to in not including the functionality it claimed to include.

Re:

[thegarbz]

As much as you jest the answer is actually quite true. Cyanogenmod has a list of supported devices, it has a list of supported functionality. On top of that it is a program that is in no way supported by the manufacturer and in several cases you need to jump through real hoops even to install in the first place.

If you wanted to run Cyanogenmod then it is your fault and your fault alone for not looking at the supported hardware first. If you are just experimenting or wanted to get rid of the manufacturer OS

Re:

[wbr1]

I voted with my dollars that way because they were phones I could -afford-. I do not pay for 2yr contracts. I currently use ting. I cannot pay $300-$600 for a phone when something 60-120 does fine for my needs. Find me a supported phone with halfway specs (currently for me at least 1ghz and 1gb memory) for less than a Benjamin please.

Re:

[triffid_98]

There are plenty of devices with full CM support. If you don't own one, how is that their fault exactly?

I'm happy to see this become a priority for them, that was one of the big downsides to switching to CM on my phone, which fortunately for me was not a deal breaker, and they did eventually patch it.

I look forward to seeing my 8MP camera actually start taking pictures that look like 8MP and not 2MPish, but the switch was totally worth it even sans-camera. More speed, better UI, upgraded android versio

Re:

[jtmach]

If none are officially supported through Cyanogenmod, you can bet that they are not being pushed updates from the original manufacturers either. The built in Android camera app has made several giant strides since 4.1. The 2.3 camera, not so much.

Re:

[loufoque]

This is probably because you chose subpar smartphones.
CyanogenMod is mostly maintained by smartphone enthusiasts, and those people simply get the better phones.

I must be getting old.

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

I thought FOCAL was the language of the first lunar lander game.

Nokia

[Anonymous Coward]

Nokia's Cinemagraph, Smartshoot and maybe a Lumia 1020 too?

Capcha was "consider"...hmmm

Sounds like a great alternative

[sl4shd0rk]

- zero shutter lag
- touch-targeting manual/auto focus mode
- shutter 'spaz' mode

I've always been a little frustrated with the shutter lag on my smartphones. Hope CM continues to improve on it.

Re:

[maden]

Did someone force you to read this? If not, what are you complaining about?

DMCA takedown

[tuppe666]

I was going to make flippant remark as I am not in love with CyanogenMod music player (I am a vanilla Music Player Fan). I like CyanogenMod because it is basically stock Android, and this is another deviation from that.

Whay I didnt realise is CyanogenMod has received a takedown Notice under DMCA from DxO Labs SA https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2013-03-12-DxO-Labs.md [github.com] for allegedly using its code unlicensed.

Better article here http://www.androidcentral.com/cyanogenmod-focal-camera-app-nemesis [androidcentral.com] looks great..shame about that icon.

Looked at the file, rubbish takedown

[dutchwhizzman]

It's nothing but a list of filenames that DxO wants taken down. There is no artistic or intellectual value, nor programming in this file. I'd say it's a frivolous takedown request and they should be fined for it, according to the rules of the DMCA.

Re:DMCA takedown

[Crudely_Indecent]

You might change your tune after experiencing a vendor modified version of Android followed by a Cyanogenmod pure version of Android on the same phone. The difference is night and day. Sure, the vendors add a few snazzy UI features - but nothing that actually enhances the phone. In fact, most vendor versions suffer glitches and slowdowns that are maddening to someone who knows they shouldn't be there.

Since installing Cyanogenmod the first time, I now shop for phones that are capable of running it. The first thing I do with my new phones is install CM because I'm used to the speed and consistency of the interface.

On top of that, CM stays close to the current Android release - whereas vendors are usually far behind, some never updating at all.

My wife and I have the same phone (GS3) and she doesn't want me to make any modifications to her phone. I get better battery life and have fewer problems with CM than she has with the vendor version her phone shipped with. On top of that, the vendor version doesn't allow tethering to be turned on unless we pay extra on our plan - my CM version has no such restriction.

Re:

[Clifton Beach]

CM stays close to the current Android release - whereas vendors are usually far behind, some never updating at all.

Samsung released the JB stock rom for the GS3 some time back.
The latest stable version of CM for the GS3 is 9.1, based on Android ICS.

Re:

[Crudely_Indecent]

Latest stable for GS3 is CM 10.1.2 (Android 4.2.2), released 7/11/2013

http://download.cyanogenmod.org/?type=stable&device=d2att [cyanogenmod.org]

You were saying?

Excellent

[ichthus]

Looks excellent. I hope they bring back the ability to go directly to the gallery after snapping a photo. There used to be a little thumbnail of the last pic that you could tap to view it full-screen. This went away when I updated from 10.0 to 10.1.

Anyway, I'll be grabbing the first nightly that has Focal merged in.

Re:

[chmod a+x mojo]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think that was an Android change. My Nexus10 tablet is like that, all you should have to do to get to the gallery is swipe the screen from right > left in the camera application and it should bring up the gallery and last shot. It's not exactly intuitive to find that " feature", I only found it on accident.

Re:

[ichthus]

Yep, that works. Thank you!

Looks amazing

[detain]

Love some of the features in it including the exposure ring.

suspicious

[CobaltHex]

This looks like its been borrowed from nokia's designs: http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18tm2lc77q096jpg/k-bigpic.jpg [gawkerassets.com]

Digital had this

[jabberw0k]

Old tech! I used FOCAL [wikipedia.org] on a PDP-11 in the late 70s!