Android 11 Won't Allow Third Party Camera Apps as Default; Is Google Limiting Indie Devs?

Android 11 is set to make a number of fine changes in order further refine the Android user experience, and according to a recent report, the latest of these changes is related to camera apps on Android phones. According to Google, the present ability for users to set a third party camera app as the default camera app on their Android phones represent a ‘privacy’ loophole, which rogue apps may be misusing to harvest user location data that may be sold or misused without express user consent. In order to prevent this, starting with Android 11, Google will restrict third party camera apps from taking over as the main camera app on your phone. As a result, Google states that many rogue apps use this opportunity to read your geolocation data through EXIF data of images, all by gaining access to your files through these third party camera apps. Google states that users can continue to use their preferred third party camera apps on Android as before, only that they will not be the default app of choice any more, so that Google has better control over restricting access of location and other sensitive data to apps that you install.