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Comment by tartuffe78 | Hacker News Reader

We we're doing video, so we are using Camera1 (and Camera2) where its available, but its a bad situation. Lots of obscure devices we don't have access to test on fail regularly and users blame us not Android. The API is clumsy and broken, not just difficult to use.

If I was making an app with photo taking capabilities, I would explore the Snapchat route. Obviously Snapchats users are ok with this for the most part.

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This^

I have made countless cross-platform AR apps for mobile and desktop. Never an issue with WebRTC/getUserMedia, iOS, windows, etc. However Android is always a nasty problem. From incorrect aspect resolutions, image stretching, silent fails. Each device needs a custom fix which is time consuming and costly. No wonder why Snapchat went an alternative route.

Are time-consuming custom fixes still commonly required in other (not camera reliant) Android apps too? I haven't really done any Android development since I had a Galaxy phone four years ago because this problem really turned me off to making hobby apps for Android.

The camera & low-level video encoding / decoding are the most device-specific quirky in my experience. If you're making something that is just "software" it's all pretty standardized, but when you start accessing the "hardware" (video codec, camera, possibly low-level audio) is where the device specific differences catch you.

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