LineageOS is one of the best-known custom ROMs for Android phones (and other devices), which allows you to replace the software that came with your device with a customizable, open source alternative.
Now the developers have released LineageOS 20 and the latest build brings some significant improvements. Firstly, it is based on Android 13. Secondly, it introduces a brand new camera app. And third… well, there are so many other changes that it’s hard to rank them.
Among other things, people who want to install the Android TV version of LineageOS now get an app launcher that isn’t cluttered with ads (like the one Google uses by default). The web browser and image gallery apps have both received improvements and bug fixes, the Recorder app now supports high-quality stereo audio recording, and the volume panel has been reworked.
The LineageOS team has also built in the latest security patches from Google (security updates are also available for older OS versions dating back to LineageOS 17.1).
But one of the most notable changes will be the new camera app, which is called Opening. Until recently, LineageOS used a fork of Qualcomm’s camera app called Snap, but that was dropped with the release of LineageOS 19 and the developers shipped the OS with Google’s default Android Open Source Project camera app… which isn’t very good.
So the team took advantage of Google’s CameraX software to develop a new camera app that supports advanced features, including full control over optical image stabilization and electronic image stabilization, video frame rate controls, a leveler that monitors the orientation angle of the device and assistive camera support (although the latter may only be available on certain devices, as it’s up to the person responsible for maintaining LineageOS support for each device to enable it).
More details can be found in the LineageOS 20 release announcement.