When the Nexus 5X and 6P were announced late last month, many of their camera features like slow-motion video capture and smart burst were disclosed to us. But what good is a camera when you have to fumble to launch it and your perfect moment has already passed by the time your phone is ready to take a shot or a video? That’s why both Nexuses have two nifty ways to launch the camera immediately while the phone’s screen is off.
The first, which we already knew about, is a double tap of the power button. The gesture bypasses the lockscreen and opens the camera immediately to let you start snapping photos.
The second should be familiar to Motorola owners. As with many of Motorola’s devices, you can double twist the Nexus 5X or 6P in order to quickly launch the camera. Qualcomm’s Nexus announcement press release explicitly points out that both phones will support this gesture thanks to Context Core.
You can see how both shortcut options will be displayed on the Display settings menu of the Nexus 6P in this hands-on video.
Update 1: 2015/10/15 7:55am PDT
After we shared this article, Qualcomm has updated its press release page to expressly state that the double twist gesture has been replaced by the double tap of the power button. “The feature to launch the camera via double-twist of the device was replaced by double tap of the power key. The name Context Core has been changed to Android Sensor Hub.” We’ve reached out to Google and are awaiting confirmation from them. Thanks, Tony.
- Thanks:
- +Greg Abbott