Google may introduce Apple’s Continuity Camera rival with Android 14 – Times of India

Google is said to introduce another Apple-like feature. Apple introduced the interesting Continuity camera feature last year. The feature can turn the iPhone into a webcam for the Mac. Now it appears that tech giant Google is also working on a similar kind of feature.
According to Android expert Mishaal Rahman, Google is planning to enable native support for using Android phones as webcams for PCs and Chromebooks. The company is working on rolling out the feature with Android 14.
“Using an Android phone as a webcam became really popular during the pandemic, but you’ve typically had to install a third-party app to do so. You may not have to do this in the future, though, as Google is adding support for turning Android devices into USB webcams!”, tweeted Rahman.

Rahmaan further revealed that he spotted the information in the Android Open Source Project repository. He noticed a service called ‘DeviceAsWebcam’. This yet-to-launch feature is rumoured to allow users to answer video calls using Android smartphones that support UVC ((USB video class) gadget mode.

“Android is adding a new “DeviceAsWebcam” service that “turns an android device into a webcam.” Specifically, Android devices that support the standard UVC (USB video class) gadget mode will be able to send video data that hosts can read from /dev/video* nodes,” added Rahmaan.
The feature is still in the developmental stage and it is not clear if Google will include it in the final update or not.
Recently, Google’s parent company Alphabet announced its fourth quarter earnings. Shares of Alphabet were down nearly 5% in after-hours trading, after losing about 40% of their value in 2022. The company’s sales fell short as Google’s advertising clients pulled back spending from a period of pandemic-led excess.