Take your media creation to the next level — basic, better, and best

This guide charts the optimal progression of a media creation-focused app from a likely starting place to best-in-class. It's designed to help you think about scaling your app over time, and what features to implement when. While every media creation app is different, consider these recommendations to achieve a best-in-class app.

Basic media creation

A basic media creation app provides users with a foundational experience, which may include doing the following:

• Use photo picker to access existing photos and videos.
• Support in-app image and in app video capture using CameraX.
• Handle camera orientation.
• Support automatic resolution.
• Switch between front and back camera.
• Support zoom and tap-to-focus.
• Support hardware flash.
• Handle multi-window camera access.
• Use the Android Sharesheet to share with other apps and targets.

Better media creation

A better media creation app gives users access to premium camera hardware, camera software, and media-editing features that:

Capture

• Use camera extensions: night mode, HDR, or bokeh.
• Have zero shutter lag.
• Support screen-based flash for selfie cameras.
• Use manual flash or torch controls.
• Use target resolutions.
• Have exposure compensation.
• Add an app widget so users can get start a capture flow from their home screen.

Edit

• With video trimming, cropping, and other built-in Media3 transformer effects.
• UltraHDR images, rotation, cropping, and scaling.
• Use image filters and transformations.
• Audio with audio effects.

Best media creation

A best-in-class media creation app gives users access to advanced features that really make the app stand out, such as:

Capture

• Use concurrent cameras: front-and-back simultaneous capture.
• Stream live with adaptive live streaming. Consider using performance class to help determine if the device can support concurrent camera capture.

Edit

• Support custom effects using Media3 transformer.
• UltraHDR images, transforming the gain-map appropriately for image filters and other operations.
• Audio with custom audio effects.