Swiping your finger to the left, meanwhile, causes the viewfinder to slide away and your most recently captured photos to be revealed. You can edit any image right then and there with a couple of taps, utilizing a range of built-in filters, frames, and cropping and lighting tools. With one to two taps, you can also easily share images with any compatible service installed on your device: Gmail, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Twitter or any other app that supports Android's platform-wide sharing API.
The Android 4.2 Camera app has a fantastic new feature called Photo Sphere. Expanding on the panoramic image functionality introduced in Android 4.0, Photo Sphere allows you to capture interactive 360-degree images and share them with anyone.
Photo Sphere images look exactly like what you see on Google's Street View service; in fact, they're based on the same technology. When you fire up the Photo Sphere feature, the system guides you through the act of snapping multiple photos in varying directions and angles; it then automatically stitches the images together into a single cohesive sphere. You really have to see the process in action to appreciate how impressive it is (the folks from Android Central have put together a nice collection of user-submitted Photo Sphere images if you want to check some out).
Camera changes aside, Android 4.2 includes a new "quick settings" panel that gives you easy access to basic system settings. While similar functionality has long been offered in some manufacturer-modified versions of Android, Google has actually implemented it in a way that doesn't make you want to gouge your eyes out: The panel is visually subdued and tactfully tucked away in an icon within the main notification pulldown. You can also jump to it directly by swiping down from the top of the screen with two fingers instead of one -- a handy shortcut that's fun to use.
Follow JR on Google+
