System camera app

GGORG

Hi, I know this has been already tackled in the past, but are you planning to add a very simple toggle in Sandboxed Google Play settings to change the default system camera app from GOS to Google Camera? It's a bit annoying that I have to always manually open the camera and then share the photo to get the best quality, because the image picker/camera built into apps always opens the (slightly worse quality) GrapheneOS Camera.
Also, when using a custom launcher (with M3 themed icons in the app drawer) it's a bit difficult to distinguish between 2 identically named apps ("Camera") with almost identical icons... So, if the default camera can be switched to GCam, it would be best to have the ability to disable the "stock" (GOS) camera app.

Murcielago

GGORG

Sounds to me as if you have set the GrapheneOS camera as default. Apps that access a camera use this default app.

To set GoogleCamera as default, first remove the GrapheneOS camera as default app via: settings>apps>see all apps. Tap on GrapheneOS camera>Open by default>clear default preference.

If you now open the camera via other apps/image picker, a dialog box should appear ("complete action using: Camera A/Camera B"). Select the GoogleCamera by taping on "always". GoogleCamera is now your default camera.

Regarding the similar icons:
I don't know which launcher you are using - but maybe you can just change the icon to avoid confusing them?

I sometimes use the KISS launcher - you can't change the icons there, but you can rename apps - instead of deactivating the GrapheneOS camera, you could simply rename it.

treequell

GGORG

You can't set Google Camera as the system camera app even optionally and that's not something that GrapheneOS would ever do. If you wanted to maintain your own fork of GrapheneOS you could build an OS with Google Camera as the system camera app, but that's something you'd need to do yourself.

treequell

Murcielago

You're referring to the default camera app, but GGORG is asking about the system camera app. Those are two different things. The system camera app is always GrapheneOS Camera on GrapheneOS, no matter which app you have as the default. The system camera app is used for media intents, as described in the question from GGORG.

GGORG

treequell [sorry for a very late reply, I always forget about my own forum posts and forget to check them :)]

Just to clarify, yes, I meant the system camera that gets open by the intent, which does not display an app choice dialog.

Why is that? Why would GrapheneOS not allow you to just have yet another setting in the Settings > Apps > Default apps menu? I'm not talking about making GCam preinstalled, just allowing users to choose if they want to.

Also, I fixed the launcher problem by using a launcher that allows me to hide apps from the app drawer.

Murcielago

treequell

OK, then I have misunderstood.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure whether the questioner is really talking about the default app or the system camera app.

The problem he described:

"...camera built into apps always opens the (slightly worse quality) GrapheneOS Camera."

can be solved, for example, with the approach I described
(e.g. in the Fossify Gallery / Simple Mobile Gallery you can access the camera from the app. The app does not use the system camera but the default camera).

Anyway, I hope our two answers were helpful.

treequell

The inability to change the system app is not something specific to GrapheneOS but Android in general. System apps have tighter integration into the OS, and can't be simply installed/uninstalled or changed to another app by the user.

GrapheneOS

The camera media capture functionality used by apps can only be provided by a system camera app for security reasons. This was introduced in Android 11. That's not going to be rolled back by GrapheneOS.

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/behavior-changes-11#media-capture

Our Camera app is going to be significantly improved. It now has Night mode included in the next OS release, and other improvements are on the way.

GGORG

GrapheneOS Either way, I don't think that AI post-processing will be possible with the GOS Camera...