The $3 SmugMug photo app's options for focus, exposure, editing, and sharing are now on Google's mobile OS. But Android's awkwardness means only the most popular phones are supported.
The company began developing the two versions at the same time, but the Android version took 20 months longer to build because its first two development efforts faltered.
Chief Executive Don MacAskill blamed early Android shortcomings -- since fixed -- and persistent fragmentation of the Android market into devices with varying screen sizes, processor capabilities, memory resources, and OS versions.
"It turned out to be so much more difficult than iOS," MacAskill said. "The plethora of devices is a real pain. Earlier versions of Android had some serious issues around memory management, so taking and editing photos was basically the thing you couldn't do without jumping through all kinds of hoops."
But MacAskill had plenty of favorable things to say about Android, too, besides that Google has buttoned up the memory problems. He likes its "intents" system, where a program can easily call upon another -- for example, the Twitter app invoking Camera Awesome to take a photo or Camera Awesome invoking the Facebook app to post a photo. And he likes the privileges that Android extends to third-party apps, for example letting people set Camera Awesome as the default camera app, even from a phone's lock screen.
Camera Awesome is here. But as all great things come along, it took some work for this app to come to fruition. This app took more time to develop than the iOS app, which is saying something. It was mainly around memory management that had the most problems. But now since Android took 20 months to work out the kinks and had two versions being built at the same time...this still may have some glitches, but well worth it.