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Anyone from Google know what the deal is with barcode scanners on Android, zxing is in "maintenance mode" we have recently added QR scanning to our app and the

Anyone from Google know what the deal is with barcode scanners on Android, zxing is in "maintenance mode" we have recently added QR scanning to our app and the experience on iOS is far superior (integrated, faster etc). Or do you have to mothball zxing for a period of time before launching a new "scanner product" to get that team promoted before abandoning it as part of the Google SDLC (Build, Promote, Abandon)

tareqak 7y ago
I believe you can use the Google Goggles app to read QR codes, but I no longer have an Android phone to try it out.
- mustardo 7y ago
  Thanks, looks like that's in the abandon phase, "Final Release 1.9.4 / August 20, 2018; 10 months ago" [1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Goggles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Goggles
  - mustardo 7y ago
    Ah another team (Google Lens) must be in the dev / promote phase, also looks like android 9+ has integrated scanner, so sweet, I can use that in 6 years time when I can get the min SDK to that... https://medium.com/turunen/scan-qr-codes-by-google-lens-907d6f020c7 https://medium.com/turunen/scan-qr-codes-by-google-lens-907d...
    - muxator 7y ago
      > also looks like android 9+ has integrated scanner I made the decision of not installing play services or emulation layers on my phone, and I can confirm a bunch of low-key apps do not work because of this. That functionality is now considered part of the base system, and only a few applications come with they'd reimplementation of barcode scanning. WhatsApp, for example, has its own, probably for evil reasons :) AOSP is progressively becoming less useful, and there is no open alternative. Alarming.
      - mustardo 7y ago
        Interesting, at least zxing was open source and kinda embeddable [1] Goggles / Lens certainly aren't :-( I share your alarm, would be nice if barcode scanning (amongst others) were part of AOSP. Alas this would detract from Googles ability to track what you scan [1]https://github.com/journeyapps/zxing-android-embedded https://github.com/journeyapps/zxing-android-embedded
      - jraph 7y ago
        Yeah, hopefully Plasma Mobile, UBPorts, PureOS or some other project catches up before the proprietary parts of Android eats AOSP too much. Anyway, I'm looking forward this in any case.
matharmin 7y ago
ZXing isn't an official Google product, although it was created by an ex-Googler (perhaps still at Google at the time). Google itself has a "Barcode API", but they seem to recommend "ML Kit" these days.
- kebman 7y ago
  Yeah that API was a no-go for me, as I don't really want to share all that data with Google. So I was stuck with ZXing.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    ML Kit runs on-device if sending to Cloud is your worry.
- mustardo 7y ago
  Thanks, I didn't know ML Kit had barcode scanning

tareqak 7y ago

I believe you can use the Google Goggles app to read QR codes, but I no longer have an Android phone to try it out.

mustardo 7y ago
Thanks, looks like that's in the abandon phase, "Final Release 1.9.4 / August 20, 2018; 10 months ago" [1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Goggles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Goggles
- mustardo 7y ago
  Ah another team (Google Lens) must be in the dev / promote phase, also looks like android 9+ has integrated scanner, so sweet, I can use that in 6 years time when I can get the min SDK to that... https://medium.com/turunen/scan-qr-codes-by-google-lens-907d6f020c7 https://medium.com/turunen/scan-qr-codes-by-google-lens-907d...
  - muxator 7y ago
    > also looks like android 9+ has integrated scanner I made the decision of not installing play services or emulation layers on my phone, and I can confirm a bunch of low-key apps do not work because of this. That functionality is now considered part of the base system, and only a few applications come with they'd reimplementation of barcode scanning. WhatsApp, for example, has its own, probably for evil reasons :) AOSP is progressively becoming less useful, and there is no open alternative. Alarming.
    - mustardo 7y ago
      Interesting, at least zxing was open source and kinda embeddable [1] Goggles / Lens certainly aren't :-( I share your alarm, would be nice if barcode scanning (amongst others) were part of AOSP. Alas this would detract from Googles ability to track what you scan [1]https://github.com/journeyapps/zxing-android-embedded https://github.com/journeyapps/zxing-android-embedded
    - jraph 7y ago
      Yeah, hopefully Plasma Mobile, UBPorts, PureOS or some other project catches up before the proprietary parts of Android eats AOSP too much. Anyway, I'm looking forward this in any case.

matharmin 7y ago

ZXing isn't an official Google product, although it was created by an ex-Googler (perhaps still at Google at the time). Google itself has a "Barcode API", but they seem to recommend "ML Kit" these days.

kebman 7y ago
Yeah that API was a no-go for me, as I don't really want to share all that data with Google. So I was stuck with ZXing.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  ML Kit runs on-device if sending to Cloud is your worry.
mustardo 7y ago
Thanks, I didn't know ML Kit had barcode scanning