Top Cam – Instant Pictures! Never Miss a Camera Moment with this Android App
by Paul Wilks
Jan 3, 2012 8:58 AM –
Install
Top Cam is a nifty little tool that lets you take pictures faster. Essentially the app overlays whatever app, launcher or game you are running with a quick camera button. Now, instead of having to locate your camera, navigating away from the app you’re using, there is a quick button which will automatically take a picture for you. Beautifully simple, you might never need to miss a great shot again!
Price: Free, $2.50 from the Android Market, or $1.99 from AndroidTapp Store.
Tested on: HTC Desire HD
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Quickly takes pictures, no need to open camera app!
- Relatively unobtrusive button!
- Simple to use!
- Minimising!
Cons
- Still might seem to get in the way of the app/game you’re using (depending on the app).
Features:
Have you ever missed a brilliant photo moment as it seems to take an age to get your camera app open and ready to shoot? 
I know I have. Such moments occur often and it’s always disappointing and frustrating to bluster your way to your camera app only to miss it completely. Top Cam arguably goes some way to remedy this. The app simply overlays a camera shot button on top of whatever app you might be running.
Whether you are in the middle of doing some social networking on Google+ or playing an intense session of Muffin Knight, Top Cam’s handy button is easy to tap and take a picture- you don’t even have to enter the camera app for it to snap! It’s beautifully simple and could help you capture ‘those precious moments’.
Setting up is simplicity itself. Easily pin the camera on top of those apps which are running via the clear and understandable Initialization page. Here you can also unpin it and disable the camera sound. Shutter sound disabling means the app can work as a spy cam too. Once enabled, you’ll notice a small brown arrow on the top right of your devices screen, tap this to maximise the buttons. When tapped you are presented with a shutter button and an ‘X’ button, which disables the app. You can also minimise it again if you want.
Now, even when minimised you ‘might’ find it interferes with the display of the app you’re using, but on the whole this shouldn’t really be the case. Just a tiny brown arrow in the corner shouldn’t get in the way too much and this is a cool and speedy way of taking pictures. Pictures are stored in a separate folder in your gallery for easy viewing at a later time. It’s a mesmerically simple, yet very effective app for taking very quick shots. There is a free version that takes lower resolution pics and you cannot mute the shutter sound, but it’s a good introduction to the app and its capabilities.
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Top Cam – Initialisation screen
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Top Cam – Overlaying homescreen
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Top Cam – Overlaying Google+
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Top Cam – Overlayng Music
Usefulness:
Top Cam is hugely useful for taking quick pictures on the go. It’s relatively unobtrusive on your screen and allows you to swiftly take pictures with your device. It cuts out all the time it takes to come out of whatever app you are in, locate your camera app shortcut, load the camera app and snap away. Instead, just tap the Top Cam button and away you go! Perfect if you’re fed up of missing golden photo opportunities.
Ease of Use:
The menu is very simple and maximising/minimising/taking a photo is typically very user-friendly and straightforward.
Frequently Used:
I guess this depends on how often you have those photo-moments spring upon you. It might be you only have the app running when you think something might happen, or you might even feel better having Top Cam running in the background all the time.
Interface:
The interface is very simple. The buttons are kind of ‘woody’ which might not work with a more modern theme, but the icons, etc. are mostly minimised so it shouldn’t interfere much. I perhaps wish there were more settings; like where the button is located, theme of the icons and things like flash and resolution, but for quick ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ snaps this is ideal.