How to take pictures from the camera without preview when my app starts?

Question

Now all I want is an app that just takes the picture from the camera upon launching. No layout, no camera preview...nothing, just a simple app icon to launch the app. Once l

Answer 1

As of API-Level 11 the SurfaceTexture was added. With it a SurfaceView is no longer needed. I tested the following code with my Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo.

mCamera = Camera.open();
try {
    mCamera.setPreviewTexture(new SurfaceTexture(10));
} catch (IOException e1) {
    Log.e(Version.APP_ID, e1.getMessage());
}

Parameters params = mCamera.getParameters();
params.setPreviewSize(640, 480);
params.setFlashMode(Camera.Parameters.FLASH_MODE_OFF);
params.setPictureFormat(ImageFormat.JPEG);
mCamera.setParameters(params);
mCamera.startPreview();
mCamera.takePicture(null, null, null, new PictureCallback() {
    @Override
    public void onPictureTaken(byte[] data, Camera camera) {
        Log.i(Version.APP_ID, "picture-taken");
    }
});