Why Are Pictures on Snapchat Uglier on Android.

Did you ever wonder why pictures uploaded to Snapchat on an Android were uglier than those sent from iPhones? This time it is not of your fault, but that of Snapchat. If you want to know more, stay with me and let us discover the hard truth.

 One sided love

It is no secret now that snaps sent from Android are like stones compared to the diamonds sent from iPhones. Even the high quality cameras equipping high end Android phones are disgraced once a picture is uploaded on Snapchat. But why is it so? Well the answer is simple, Snapchat Inc. has always neglected Android - despite it being rated an average of 4.05/5 on Android by 17 million users unlike the average note of 2.0/5 given by 2.3 million iPhone users. Let’s dig more.

Like all hardware devices, a driver is needed for the software to use it. However with billions of different models of smartphones on Android, and a corresponding diversity in camera modules, it is difficult to create a software that can control all the various commands of the various cameras on Android. But unlike Android, it is a lot easier to create a software that can take in charge all the controls of camera modules on iPhones. If you are not lost, let’s continue.

A couple of years back, Google released API Camera2. API stands for Application Programming Interface. It is an intermediary layer of instruction (between the hardware and software that request it use), that listen to what the software needs (actions it wants to carry out on the hardware), and conveys translated instructions to the camera in this case. Therefore, API Camera2 was meant to enable any software on Android, to fully utilize the various cameras on Android. Unfortunately not everyone is a good student, and so was Snapchat. It never made use of APIs. Instead, Snapchat had always, taken “screenshots”, of what was seen through the camera lens.

Indeed Snapchat never asked the camera to take a picture, but instead had the guts to simply take a screenshot of what was seen by the camera… This was a method developed by Snapchat to make sure it could easily run on all the ever commercialized Android phones. But the biggest disadvantage of this method was that the resolution of the picture (snap) was that of your smartphone’s screen, and the snap was void of any post-treatment (without forgetting the additional compression of the picture to make it available on different networks).

This is what I call an operating system base discrimination! However, thankfully it seems the recent holes in Snapchat Inc.’s funds has forced it to be less unscrupulous toward Android users. As you may have realized some Android devices are not having this issue (Galaxy S7 for example). At last Snapchat is making things better for Android users by better optimizing it app for Android, starting with a support of API Camera2. However your phones needs to be equipped with Android 5.0 Lollipop at least.