This article was published on November 9, 2015

A Google engineer explains why some Nexus 5X photos are upside-down


A Google engineer explains why some Nexus 5X photos are upside-down

Nexus 5X owners have been experiencing issues with upside-down photos. Originally assumed to be some sort of bug, a Google engineer has explained that it’s partly a hardware-based issue.

So what happened? According to Google’s Eino-Ville Talvala, the first thing we can point to is an image sensor that was installed differently:

Because of manufacturing reasons, we needed to mount the Nexus 5X main sensor in the less-common (reverse landscape) orientation – the wires from the sensor chip wouldn’t have fit otherwise.

In addition to the different sensor orientation, some apps still use Google’s old camera API. The newer API takes sensor position into account.

Talvata does say that Google is reaching out to developers as they find the old API being called. If your favorite app is toying with your photos, though, maybe just use the stock camera or a recently updated app.

Nexus 5X Marshmallow camera problem [Reddit via Engadget]

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