In announcing a new camera app for CyanogenMod users, the team also revealed some more information about their Nemesis project announced earlier this week. According to CyanogenMod, the Nemesis initiative is an effort to improve the user experience for Android ROMs built on the Android Open Source Project code, like CyanogenMod. The first example of where the experience falls short is in the camera app, which the CyanogenMod team thinks is lacking when compared to versions released by HTC, Samsung and LG. To correct that, CyanogenMod is releasing Focal, a completely new camera app.
The Focal app includes a settings menu that slides in from the left and a camera button that expands out to offer some basic choices, like switching to video or panorama mode. Because Google’s proprietary Photosphere code was not available, CyanogenMod built their own photosphere type function called PicSphere which will be an open source alternative. PicSphere works in a similar fashion to Photosphere with online guides helping users point the camera in the right direction and then handling all the post-processing to stitch the images together.
Using software solutions, Focal provides features like HDR photography, multiple shots, and the ability to capture a picture while recording video. These capabilities will be present even if the phone itself did not have these as part of their original feature set. The CyanogenMod team indicates Focal was built in a manner that will let device maintainers tweak and add features to the app based on their hardware. This strategy will help Focal keep up with changing hardware and more advanced features by making it easy for maintainers to add support.
The Focal app will be released to the Nightly builds some time next week with stable builds ready for particular devices coming sometime soon. We will also be on the lookout for more apps and improvements to the CyanogenMod ROM that come out of the Nemesis initiative. CyanogenMod indicates Nemesis will eventually provide a whole series of changes to the user experience, although it is unclear whether they will just be offering up better versions of individual apps or will eventually offer a complete “skin” to replace the stock Android experience.
source: Geek.com
Come comment on this article: CyanogenMod announces Nemesis pseudo-skin, Focal camera app first app to be released
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