How Google lost the plot with Android One

It is not that Google hasn't been reprimanded in the past for its camera app, but for the sake of Android One devices it needs to be done again. To call the Google camera app abysmal would be putting it mildly. And this app is crippling Android One devices all around the world.

Nowadays, it is possible to get a decent camera on even a phone that costs as less as Rs 5,000. A phone like the InFocus M2 had a surprisingly good camera. Conversely, cameras on Google's Android One devices have been utterly useless.

Who's to blame for this? Well, the way I see it, Google should shoulder most of the responsibility for the poor cameras on the Android One hardware. It is not as if we are asking for the moon and demanding iPhone-like image quality of devices that cost just a fraction the amount.

But what is needed is a camera that is able to take basic shots under good light conditions. That has clearly not happened with the Android One smartphones that we've seen in India. The first three phones that were launched last September would not even click a photo until you popped a microSD card in them.

The new Lava Pixel V1 is an improvement, but also costs twice as much the earlier models and still doesn't make the cut.

So what's the problem? Well, a camera is a sum of its elements - the hardware and the software - and we still believe Google has to do a lot of work to improve things.

The first three Android One smartphones by Micromax, Karbonn and Spice were identical and featured virtually no internal memory, poultry image sensor and a barebones camera app.

Ever since, the hardware has drastically improved. The Lava Pixel V1 has a Sony sensor, an f/2.0 aperture, a blue glass filter and a five-element lens system. The pixel size of each pixel is also at 1.4 microns, and yet the phone doesn't take good photos.

It is the software that has to take the blame, and the onus is upon Google to fix the problems. At times, the Pixel V1 can take as long as two seconds to click a photo. That's an eternity in photography.

Making matters worse is the fact that the app itself is very limited in functionality, offering minimal granular control.

A simple app is okay if the software is sorted and it takes over the burden of heavy lifting and delivers good results. The iPhone does it very well. But that doesn't work if the camera app is painstakingly slow. In fact, if anything, Google has taken a step backwards with its camera software in recent years.

Back in 2011, when it launched the Galaxy Nexus, the zero-shutter-lag, or the sheer speed of the camera was one of the most talked about things. Four years later, it can be argued that Google makes the worse camera app on Android.

Remember, the camera app is also one of the most customised apps that you can find on an Android phone. The camera app is one such app which changes from device to device. If Google is able to create a good stock camera app, chances are that more original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will start using Google's solutions.

In the case of an Android One smartphone, the OEMs don't even have that option. Therefore, despite decent imaging gear, the camera falls flat on its face as the software algorithms are clearly not doing their job.

Google needs to make a camera app, which offers a decent amount of manual control to the user. It needs to make the app simpler, because the current interface isn't obvious for the layman to use. More importantly, it needs to make the point and shoot experience faster. It needs to shave off a few seconds in the case of the new Lava Pixel V1.