Why advanced camera is not the default camera app?

Why advanced camera has been not adopted as per default camera app?

Here below some changes suggestions about such app in order to improve its usability in the way to adopt it as the default camera app.


Resolution change and display

The Advavance Camera shows some information on the diplay, like

  • Camera: 0 2688x1512

but this line does not bring about the ratio nor the resolution and moreover
the colon : would be expected after the #camera, in this way

  • Camera 0: 2688x1512 (16:9, 4Mpx)

The Mpx indication would be nice to have also in the choise of the resolution because it is not obvious that 16:9 implies a great loss of Mpx in someXperia.

In the config menu should appear a checkbox that links togheter the resolutions of the cameras to the same. If I change in macro-lens camera, I might not wish having to change while I switch to zoom-lens camera, again.


Zoom and EV controls

The zoom control is fine that it 100% vision long when the phone is vertical but when it is horizontal then it should have the same size of the EV and shown in the middle.

When the phone is vertical, the two controls are fine placed: one vertical (zoom) and one horizontal (EV). When the phone is horizontal, both controls (zoom, EV) are in horizontal. This breaks the logic and impair the usability.

Also in horizontal the zoom should stay on the vertical and EV on horizontal. This also means that EV can remains on the lower side when the phone is horizontal.

I suggest to change the controls disposition logic in a more coherent way as presented above and add a checkbox “new style controls” that old users can disable in order to have the controls in places where they are used to find them.

Moreover, the zoom control bar should inform the user about the zoom ratio and it is expected to be 1.0 at the first use.

BUG: the Swap zoom controls does nothing even restarting the app. Moreover, with the suggested changes applied the zoom bar can be replicated on both lateral edges in such a way that two friends pass the phone each other but one is left-handed and the other right-handed, both can use smoothly it without any configuration change.


Improving auto-focus

The auto-focus with maximum zoom using the zoom-lens (tele-zoom) camera it is hard to use.

In fact, clicking to the display a white circle apper which became green when the focus is fixed. At that point, the attempt to press the shoot button will make the camera lose the focus and often a sensible disallineament with the choosen target. Clicking again on the green circle should shoot a photo and this would prevent those movements that will impair the focus/alignment taken.


Hardware keys usage

When Advanced Camera is active up/down buttons will control the zoom while the on/off button should take a photo. Because the on/off button it is a fingerprint reader, it would enought to detect a contact not necessarly a press. In such a case, the user can keep the camera active but switch off the screen, then unlock with the fingerprint and use the camera immediately after.


Missing feature & issues

  1. A features which Advanced Camera app lacks compared to the default camera app is the Enable QR code recognition.

  2. I have the sensation that also the hardware image stabilisation is missing and it requires sensors access to functioning.

  3. @miau reports that there is problem with battery consumption for X10 III and XA2. About XA2 has been reported 30% of battery discharged for each hour. As far as I remember Advanced Camera set the display luminosity to the max level and in some smartphone this set could be eccessive and the main source of the battery drain issue.


I hope this helps, R-

Missing features

I have the sensation that also the hardware image stabilisation is missing and it requires sensors access to functioning.

Are you aware that advanced camera is a third party app and not developped by Jolla?

It is an application under GPLv2 license and here is the code:

Are you tell me that they cannot pay the author of that app fro a better UI and implement the missing feature to make it their default camera when they sell Alien Davick license with their SFOS license?

Possibly, the Advanced Camera cannot be inserted into Jolla market because it uses some API which are not allowed or not reviewed yet. Again, the API can be reviewed and for the others can be evaluate an altenative.

It is a kind of work but at the end the default camera app will start to compete with those are available for Android smartphone.

Moreover, @piggz started another application that in the future can be able to replace the defaul news app in SailfishOS as long as he incentivate to work on newsfish. So, it can happen twice that a standard application will move from OpenRepos to Jolla market in order to became the upgrade of the old default app.

And who from the few Jolla employees should maintain the app? In the past Advanced Camera sometimes stopped working for weeks after an OS update, which i don’t see as a problem as long it is a third party app.

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Few developers means that there is room for more. I have been asked to join them for fun but I have no fun in doing develop anymore (not at my age).

However, you are focusing on the problem (few money, few people). I am focusing on the solution: bringing SFOS to a further level for which the business is profitable and growing and therefore hiring more people will be not a problem. As long as the new people will be added as a part of a strategic and sustainable growth path.

Jolla is selling Ubuntu Touch as alternative for SailFish OS. Many Debian users complains that Ubuntu is too aggressive on the market but in the last reunion they decided to deliver with their installation ISO, the proprietary firmwares as well. Because the market can be hard to please¹ but it is easy to be rebounced by it and strive to survive in a niche.


POST SCRIPTUM

This without using the Anbox approch but another competitive alternative because copycats of another niche are not viable and if they are then the technology behind them is not characterising enough. In fact, as you can read, Anbox has been initially started-up by Canonical.


NOTES

¹ If I would asked my customers what kind of better coach they want, I will never made a single car - Henry Ford

Is there a default news app?

Jolla is not selling anything apart from the os, jolla-devices is a site run by an italian aficionado that decided to sell phones with sailfish preinstalled

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No, but it should be. What people are supposed to read on their commute time?

Newspaper? Or they have to buy also a e-ink device for the books / audible?

reading-newspapers3

Then, you go in the Jolla market and search for “news”. You will find just one app with limited features. Nice, clean, but too much limited. Therefore, there is a default app, unless you buy the €49 license for having the Alien Dalvik¹ compatibility layer to install Android apps and/or you are able to cope with one week of IT professional work to setup your smartphone.

it was a week of IT professional work, until a Quick Start Guide will appear… :face_with_hand_over_mouth:


NOTES

¹ in the Jolla market, it is refered as Android App Support but it is based on Alien Dalvik since the beginning of SFOS, as far as I know.

Actually I am quite happy, that my smartphone OS/ attached store/preinstalled news app does not make proposals to me which news I should read

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The GPLv2 Newsfish app developed by @piggz does?

Does it suggest you the news you have to read? :smile:

Please guys, keep the focus! :blush:


Post Scriptum

I did not verified that such app will fit all the constrains to be elegible to the “news app by default” for SFOS but it does not change the plot. Every smartphone OS that aims to reach the “advanced users, privacy concerned” market is doomed to choose a “set of default app” to deliver with its installation.

I’m actually quite happy we don’t have a preinstalled news app, i hate the fact that google is proposing me tons of stories i do not absolutely care and that you may trigger with an addictional swipe, or ms is putting them on the feed section while i just want to know the weather

4 Likes

You are you. Market is market. :slightly_smiling_face:

As long as those apps are open-source, customisable by you and can be removed or reset to default factory state, hidden and disabled with chmod -x, I do not see any problem.

After all, we are speaking about Jolla native apps market, not about Google.

Are you trying to convince me that you did not installed PatchManager and Chum at least, and you are living with the bare minimum delivered with the free (as gratis) version of SailFish OS? :wink:

Market is market, in fact ms is removing news from the windows 11 feed page, making them opt-in and not opt-out, and ms news is not preistalled by default anymore, you are right :stuck_out_tongue:

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Great! Unfortunately, here we are facing with a different situation: the default app is the only app in the store and it is so limited in its configurability that the censhorship is the last of our problem. :rofl:

I hope there is a “reasonable balance” between being pushed by marketting by default and not having a default news app which can be reasonable customisable. Do you agree?

By the way, default news app does not mean pre-installed, necessarly. However, because the Jolla market is preinstalled and there is a single news app we are just speaking about a single click in one way (install) or another (uninstall).

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Great! Unfortunately, here we are facing with a different situation: the default app is the only app in the store and it is so limited in its configurability that the censhorship is the last of our problem. :rofl:

I hope there is a “reasonable balance” between being pushed by marketting by default and not having a default news app which can be reasonable customisable. Do you agree?

By the way, default news app does not mean pre-installed, necessarly. However, because the Jolla market is preinstalled and there is a single news app we are just speaking about a single click in one way (install) or another (uninstall).

POST SCRIPTUM

Microsoft has been forced to remove the default RSS feed in Windows 11 because: 1. too many stakeholders were want that space and at the same time 2. anti-trust was investingating supported by the money of those have been left behind in the previous Windows version. Let me tell you, that it is a complete different problem / situation: Jolla is under capitalised to grow and in fact, moved to automotive market to survive while Microsoft so ridiculisously capitalised because the pressure of those want by their next Windows default app/news/etc which sometimes trigger a counter effect like the one you described.

You surely know that Newsfish is a companion app for Owncloud / Nextcloud News, and that most Sailfish users cannot use it all.
Its last update was in 2017, and the app is available for 32bit devices only.
Don’t know why you even mention it.
The recommended Nextcloud News companion app is named Fuoten, is available for 64 bit devices and well maintained.

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I wrote another post because my editing quota got exausted and I cannot edit nor delete any post anymore… Freedom, freedom and then enforced netiquette and limits everywhre. I love all of this! :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

From a total new user point of view with a pre-installed defautl news app:

  • if it is not preinstalled, it should search for it but probably s/he looking for the one who s/he know in an Android store.
  • if it it is installed, it came without any permissions and it should be configured - do you remember your first installation? :slightly_smiling_face:
  • those who dislike having that news app, can disable it with a simple action.

As long as, it is easier uninstall/disable an app than let people go for an Android version, I do not see the problem.

At the moment, pre-installed apps cannot be disabled. This can change in future.

Are pre-installed apps strictly necessary? I hate the tutorial (not true, just for example) and I cannot remove it. I feel that my freedom is limited, moreover I do not know which permissions has that apps, therefore also my privacy is at risk. May be one night, it will raise against me while I am sleeping… :rofl:

Edit the file
/usr/share/applications/sailfish-tutorial.desktop

Insert the line
NoDisplay=true

after the line
Type=Application
and save the file.

You bought a hackerphone!! Enjoy! :wink:

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Wonderful! So, we can do that¹ with every pre-installed apps, like a default news app for those the delete action just hide the icon! :wink:

Moreover, I took as example the Tutorial app because I noticed that it can draw over the other apps AND it knows what I am doing in order to suggest me a better way to do it. Therefore, it is spying me! :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

In the same moment, I hide its icon I got three results: 1. a pre-installed (possibly always) running application, 2. with the priviledge to overwrite what I see and to see what I write, 3. without even an icon that rember that it exists… :rofl:

This would be the conclusion following the logic that I saw implemented in this thread. Can you confute this suspect, also? :blush:

** NOTES **

¹ hide and disable pre-installed apps like anticipated here: