FYI: Why Android's Snapchat App Takes Inferior Photos
If you've ever wondered why the pictures and videos you share with Snapchat on your Android device seem to look grainy with low resolution, you're not alone. We all know it, and we've come to accept it as a plain fact: Snapchat image quality sucks on Android.The reason behind this is that Snapchat doesn't actually take photos on an Android device—instead, it basically grabs a screenshot of your camera's live video feed. This is not a limitation of Android, and it's not a matter of the iPhone having better hardware. It's because Snapchat's development team takes the easy way out instead of coding a proper Android app.Don't Miss: 5 Tips for Taking Better Photos with Your Smartphone
Why Snapchat's Pictures Are Worse Than Other Android AppsEver since Android 5.0 Lollipop, apps can have full access to your device's camera hardware using a feature called Camera2 API. This means that they can have manual exposure controls, capture RAW images to do post-processing themselves, and tons of other goodies that can make pictures taken by third-party apps look just as great as they do with Android's stock camera app.But Snapchat doesn't use this awesome feature. Instead, their Android app just asks to look at what your camera sees, then records the results. Compare that to an app like Instagram that actually taps into your camera's hardware to take full-resolution photos using Camera2 API, and you'll see an obvious difference: (1) Snapchat photo zoomed in 5x. (2) Instagram photo zoomed in 5x. Same picture, same angle, same phone, yet wildly different results. Today's Android phones have top-notch camera hardware that's obviously capable of taking great photos, so why can't Snapchat? The problem here is better explained if we take a look at the Snapchat app for iOS to do some more comparing.
Why Snapchat Takes Better Pictures on iOSWhen you're developing an app for iOS, you really only have to support one device: the iPhone. With only 15 total models ever made, it's easy to make an app that works properly with every Apple phone out there.Android, on the other hand, is a different story. There are hundreds of unique devices with various hardware components that need to be accounted for, and very few of these are even running the same version of Android. In fact, only 53% of devices have Android Lollipop or higher, so roughly half of the phones out there don't support Camera2 API.So Snapchat's development team apparently decided it didn't want to waste time supporting different Android versions, and instead, took the viewfinder-screenshot approach to make things easier on themselves. This way, one image capture method would work on all Android devices, even though it results in inferior quality.To see the difference that a properly-coded app can make, take a look at the following pictures. The one on the left was taken with the brand new Pixel XL, while the one on the right was taken with a two-year-old iPhone 6. (1) Snapchat image from Pixel XL. (2) Snapchat image from iPhone 6. On first glance, the Android picture quality might look a bit better, so let's just focus in on the zoomed area. Keep in mind that the Pixel XL has the highest-rated smartphone camera ever, so sharpness and contrast are a bit more pleasing to the eye. But even with inferior camera hardware, the Snapchat picture taken with the iPhone 6 is far less pixelated with much higher resolution: So yes, your Android Snapchat pics are grainy and pixelated. And yes, the iPhone takes Snapchat photos in much higher resolution. But this isn't a fault of Android, and it's not even something wrong with your phone—this one's on Snapchat's development team.Since the time that this article was originally published, Snapchat has been updated several times, but no drastic has been made on image quality. It's still subpar when compared to the iPhone, even on the Pixel.Follow Gadget Hacks on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and YouTube Follow Android Hacks on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest Follow WonderHowTo on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+
Cover image and screenshots by Dallas Thomas/Gadget Hacks
How To Use VSCO Filters To Create Beautiful iPhone Photos
Mobile 5 reasons why Windows on ARM could change computing -- and 3 reasons it won't. Microsoft cracked the code for putting full Windows on tablets and phones.
T-Mobile 5G: phones, coverage map and cities rollout | TechRadar
How to Cut, Copy, and Paste on Your iPhone 4S - dummies
When you delete a friend request, the person who sent you the request won't be notified and can't send you another request for one year. To permanently stop that person from sending you another friend request, you can block them.
How to Unfriend on Facebook: 9 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow
If you know how to read music, you can simply play the instrument just by reading the music notes. There are many music notes websites that allow you to download free sheet music or supply you the sheet music for a fee. In this post, we have researched the music notes websites for the steady supply of paid and free sheet music.
Free Sheet Music to Download and Print - High Quality
The SIM card on your phone holds all the transferable data. This includes messages, contacts and calendars. You may find yourself needing to replace your iPhone's SIM card for several reasons. It may be damaged and crashing your phone, or you may want to import one from a different phone. Most SIM cards on cell
Swap out your iPhone's SIM card - Video - CNET
Samsung kicked off their Android Oreo rollout earlier this week. The update already improved the lock screen significantly with new wallpaper color-matching for the clock. With the newest update, we also get the ability to tweak the transparency of lock screen notifications. To change the
How to Change the Color of Android's Clock Widget « Nexus
Power off your old iPhone. Do so by holding the lock button on the right-top or upper-right side of your phone's housing until "slide to power off" appears on the screen, then swipe "slide to power off" to the right. If your iPhone uses a SIM card, remove the SIM card from the older iPhone, and insert it into the new iPhone.
Remove or switch the SIM card in your iPhone or iPad Learn how to remove or transfer the SIM card in your iPhone or iPad (Wi-Fi + Cellular models). Use only the SIM tray that came with your device.
How to remove the SIM card in an iPhone or iPad | iMore
Trackpad Sensitivity Settings - BlackBerry® Bold™ 9650 Smartphone. To determine Device Software Version, refer to View Phone Information. Device Software Version 5.x Device Software Version 6.x . Device Software Version 5.x. From the Home screen, press the Menu button. Select Options. Select Screen / Keyboard.
Trackpad, trackball, or keyboard not working on a BlackBerry
View & delete Cookies in Firefox with MZCookiesView. When it comes down to MZCookiesView, it's designed for Mozilla Firefox, and since it's designed by the same folks who behind
How to clear the cache and cookies in Mozilla Firefox
0 comments:
Post a Comment