The shot of the Settings menu from the upcoming Nexus 5X and 6P from the Indian launch yesterday showed that the phones would support the very Motorola-like double-twist wrist flick gesture to launch the camera, but it seems that that may not be the case according to the Qualcomm blog which was updated overnight.
The Qualcomm blog announcing the Nexus 5X and 6P which they posted on the 30th of September, actually spoke about the double-twist to launch gesture, saying:
With Context Core, both the Nexus 5X and 6P cameras can launch with two twists of the user’s wrist and display notifications with a nudge.
but the latest update to that blog, now reads:
UPDATE: 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.
Head of Android Engineering Dave Burke actually announced the double tap the power button to launch the camera feature during the Nexus 2015 launch event and then went on to speak more about the Android Sensor Hub (previously called Context Core as above) and you can see it below in the Google announcement video (action starts at: 19:14, but we’ve linked it to start there):
Android Police actually got in touch with Google regarding the feature, who confirmed it had been dropped in favour of the double tap to launch on the power button. As to why, they said:
Google did not provide a particular explanation for the decision, but did say that they were initially trying both the twist gesture and the power button double-tap for the camera launch function, and ended up just going with the power button version.
Well, looks like it’s still a convenient feature, but it’s a software thing so it could be brought back at a later date. Now, if only they’d release the phones here.
