This Dedicated Camera App For Nexus 7 Lets You Take Photos And Record Videos Using Front-Facing Camera

Google’s recently announced Nexus 7 is receiving critical acclaim throughout the blogosphere. It offers the hardware of a $500 tablet – a 7” HD IPS display, quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean – for the unbeatable price of $199. Some sacrifices had to be made to bring price down to this level, sacrifices like the lack of a rear camera, higher storage capacity, extendable storage and GSM connectivity.

Because the Nexus 7 lacks a rear camera, Google/ASUS thought there was no need to include a Camera app. The front facing camera activates automatically when an app (such as a video chatting app like Google+ Hangouts) requires it. There are plenty of reasons why you would want a dedicated camera app. Using it as a mirror, taking self portraits, taking self group portraits etc. etc.

Developer Paul O’ Brien (AKA MoDaCo) has developed an app of sorts that lets you access the front-facing Camera whenever you want. Check it out after the jump.

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The ability to open up the front-facing camera at will is a feature that comes built-in to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but there was never any icon for it. What Modaco has done is add a launcher icon for the Camera application.

Installing the app simply adds an icon tapping which launches the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Camera app. This means you get all the built-in goodies like “hipster filters” and lovely Holo UI so you can take photos and record videos using the run-of-the-mill 1.3 megapixel front facing camera.

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The app is available for free and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. Don’t forget to let us know what you think of the app by leaving a comment over on our Facebook and Google+ page.

The Nexus 7 is the hottest Android tablet in the market today, and because it is a Nexus device it will get unmatched support from both Google and the general Android developer community. Expect lots of hacks and tweaks for it; hacks and tweaks that we will be covering here at Redmond Pie!

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