If you ever need quick access to the camera on the Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge, then this camera shortcut is exactly what you’re looking for.
When Samsung introduced the Galaxy S6 last year, one of the advertised features was the ability to quickly launch the camera. This was one of my favorite features of the device because grabbing a perfect photo can be all about timing. Various OEMs(and even Google) have tried to make launching the camera quicker by putting a shortcut to the camera on the lock screen.
But this can still take too long if you’re trying to grab a photo as quickly as possible.
I have the Nexus 6P now and thankfully Google and Huawei added a camera shortcut by tapping the Power button twice. Until I got that device though, I had tried to replicate this feature on all the other smartphones I was using. I tried NFC buttons, Tasker profiles, 3rd-party applications from the Play Store that promised the feature. Still, none of them could launch the camera as quickly as the Galaxy S6 could. Thankfully, Samsung carried this feature over to the Galaxy S7 and they even made it launch and focus even faster than last year’s model.
You probably already know about this feature from the advertisements, but just in case, let me show you the Galaxy S7 camera shortcut.
Galaxy S7 Camera Shortcut
- Quickly Press the Home Button Two Times in a Row
Explanation
That really is all there is to it. As you can see in the video above, this shortcut can be triggered from anywhere. The LG G4 only had this feature when the device was locked. If you were in an application or even at the home screen, then this feature simply does not launch the camera on the LG G4. This isn’t the case with the Galaxy S7. You can be in an application, at the home screen or have the device locked and it will always launch the camera very quickly.
The improvements they did to the autofocus really compliment the Galaxy S7 camera shortcut as well. It doesn’t matter if the camera is launched 100 times faster, if the autofocus didn’t immediately happen like it does on the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, then it might still take too long to get that perfect photo you were trying to capture. I really do commend Samsung for the work they’ve done with the camera on this year’s flagship. Your camera module could be from Samsung or it could be from Sony(the S7/S7 Edge ships with one of these two sensors), but if it wasn’t for Samsung’s added polish then the experience wouldn’t be as good as it is.
If this is a feature you do not like, you’ll be glad to hear that you can disable it inside the Settings section of the camera application itself. To do this, you just have to launch the camera, then tap the Gear icon to launch its settings. From here, simply scroll down and then look for the Quick Launch toggle. Toggling this feature off will make it so the camera will never be launched when you quickly press the Home button two times in a row. I can understand why someone would rather not have this feature enabled and thankfully Samsung included a way to turn it off.
