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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-10T21:08:34+00:00

My app needs a Camera to work. However, it doesn’t matter if it’s a

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My app needs a Camera to work. However, it doesn’t matter if it’s a rear or frontal camera.

Right now, I have this in my Manifest:

<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera"/>

To require a frontal Camera, I know I could also add this:

<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera.front"/>

But I’d like to support all devices that has EITHER camera. Is there anyway to do this?

For example, I want to support Nexus 7 which has only a frontal camera. But I also want to support devices with rear camera only.

According to some research I’ve made, such as:

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=35166

It seems this is not possible.

I think one way to solve this would be to make 2 separate APKs, one with android.hardware.camera and one with android.hardware.camera.front and upload both to Google Play, using its Multiple APK Support. I haven’t tested it yet, though.

Has anybody found a recommended way to support all devices with a frontal camera, a rear camera or both, but not devices without any cameras?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Several thoughts (no definite answer):

    a) I believe you are right that currently there is no good way to require either camera in on APK.

    b) If you want, you can remove uses-feature and check for a camera in runtime. It will make user experience worse, but it will work.

    c) You can use use required=”false” (http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/uses-feature-element.html). Hopefully, Google Market prioritize applications using this flag.

    c) Side note. As I know most of Android devices have a camera. So, if you go with solution b) or c) only very small user base will notice the difference

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