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Android has always lagged behind iOS in terms of quality camera apps. This was primarily due to the lack of proper APIs from Google, which made it impossible for developers to build great camera apps for the platform.
With Lollipop though, Google finally added new camera APIs to the OS for developers to take advantage of. Up until now, we have seen quite a few camera apps land on the Google Play Store that take advantage of the new APIs to offer features like RAW image support, manual control over shutter speed, and more. However, none of them particularly stand out in terms of their UI or ease of use.
With the release of ProShot for Android though, this changes. For the unknown, ProShot is among the most popular camera apps for iOS devices with over 1 million downloads. The developer of the app, Eddie Kezeli, recently released the Android version of the app, and it is as feature rich and powerful as its iOS sibling.
For starters, ProShot for Android provides you with manual control over the shutter speed, ISO levels, exposure and white balance. Additionally, it also allows you to shoot images in RAW format, provides manual focus assist, use custom aspect ratio, adjust frame rate and bitrate while recording videos and an interactive camera roll.
Features wise, ProShot for Android packs all the features present in its iOS sibling, except for the ability to customise the color of the UI. A seemingly minor feature, but the developer is working hard on bringing it to the Android app as soon as possible.
Bringing ProShot to Android was not an easy task, despite the new Camera2 APIs added by Google to Lollipop.
“Building ProShot’s UI was a bit easier on Android, but the rest was quite a difficult process. I am incredibly thankful to Google for creating such an amazing and flexible API, but the Android ecosystem has a huge problem that hurts devs and users alike: many device manufacturers choose to fork the OS, and then not stick to API guidelines. What this means is that different phones have different OS variants, to the point where an app may run just fine on an LG phone, but totally crash a Samsung.” — Eddie Kezeli told us over an email.
Since the app heavily relies on Camera2 APIs on Lollipop, only a handful of Android devices out there support all its features. This includes the Nexus 6, Nexus 5, LG G4 and the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. On other devices, certain features of the app will be disabled due to lack of APIs or the necessary hardware. As of now, the app is only compatible with devices running Android 5.1, with support for Android 5.0 still under development.
Download: ProShot for Android ($2.99)
