Google’s New Camera App Has Hidden Wide Angle Mode, Video Effects & More

Google-Camera

Advanced camera mode, wide angle mode, video effects, and photo sphere live wallpapers are just some of the features buried inside the code for Google’s new Camera app for Android. While currently inactive, the features should be made available in future updates.

The nuggets were found by Android Police, which performed its customary teardown on the Google Camera APK shortly after it was released on Wednesday.

One of the most interested strings teases the ability to “display photo spheres as a live wallpaper.” It suggests Google will give us the ability to turn the photo spheres we create into live wallpapers that might pan automatically in the background, or move as our devices do.

In iOS 7, Apple allows users to set panoramic photos as their home screen wallpapers, and users can pan around them by holding up their device and spinning on the spot. Google’s photo sphere live wallpapers could provide the same functionality.

There are also strings that reference “Advanced Camera Mode,” time lapse mode, and wide angle mode. While the latter two are pretty self-explanatory, advanced camera mode isn’t — though we assume this will allow more experienced photographers to manually tune things like white balance and ISO before snapping their photos.

A selection of different focus modes are also mention in the Google Camera code, including infinity and macro — plus a whole bunch of video effects and features. As well as snapping photos while recording videos, users may also be able to add silly faces and backgrounds to their clips.

There’s no guarantee that these features will be activated by Google, but given the code is already there, it appears they are at least in testing. Some, if not all of them, should be made available in future releases when they’re ready to go live.