Sharing photos and videos on your go-to messaging apps is an awesome way to stay connected with your loved ones. Google Messages has been making things even easier by adding a tweak to its UI and putting a camera icon right on the home screen to make it quicker to send photos and videos. Previously, you could only access the camera UI from within a specific conversation, and deciding between snapping a picture or recording a video wasn’t as smooth. Now, Google is rolling out a new camera UI to fix some of those issues, though it’s not flawless.
The new camera UI replaces the default viewfinder on Google Messages. As per 9to5Google, the search giant is pushing it out through a server-side update. To give it a try, just hop into a specific chat and look for the camera icon in the text field. You may also access the built-in camera through a quick icon at the top right on the home screen beside the search button.
However, the new viewfinder has a few downsides compared to the old default camera UI. One issue is that it ditches some of the camera controls you had before. Previously, you could use a settings cog that gave you options like camera flash, timer, and “More settings.” Plus, there was a handy button in the bottom-right corner that let you tweak the exposure and white balance.
Options from the old UI
On the other hand, Messages’ new viewfinder is designed with the Compose toolkit, which is Google’s go-to for creating Android interfaces. It’s definitely bare-bones compared to the system camera app UI, though you’ve still got some controls. You can tweak the zoom with three presets or just pinch to zoom to your heart’s content. And there’s a handy button on the top right to toggle the flash on and off. So, while it’s not as decked out as the system camera, it’s still got some nifty features to play with.
Google Messages’ old camera UI (left) versus the new one
Additionally, you can now switch between photo and video modes with ease. Before, you’d have to make up your mind on which mode to use before diving into the full screen UI.
Apart from those options, there isn’t a whole lot of customization available for snapping photos or shooting videos. Sure, Google might spice things up with more features down the road. But for now, the UI is pretty basic.
Maybe if we start telling people the brain is an app they will start using it!
