Making Bitcoin payments with a mobile device will usually involve the sender scanning a QR code generated by the recipient. By using a smartphone app, the Bitcoin sender can scan this QR code – containing the recipient’s address and payment amount if designated – then complete the transaction in mere seconds. But what if your phone is reading the QR code upside down? This is one of the reasons why you may not be able to scan QR codes on someone else’s device.
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Third-Party Camera Apps And QR Codes
Depending on what type of phone one uses, the built-in cameras may or may not be able to scan QR codes automatically. In most cases, the user will either see an error message or nothing will happen at all. Installing a third-party app such as a barcode scanner can solve this problem quite easily. But there are also people who heavily rely on third party camera apps because they offer more filters and whatnot.
These types of applications can cause a fair bit of problems when trying to scan a Bitcoin QR codes. Granted, there are other reasons why scanning such a code would not work well, ranging from screen brightness on the recipient phone to camera lenses not focusing and everything in between. However, it is important to note hardware is not always the only culprit in this scenario, as software issues can be blamed as well.
Smartphone users may have experienced the annoying problem of some pictures being turned upside down when using a camera app. While this may not be an important issue when dealing with regular photos, it makes it pretty much impossible to complete a Bitcoin transaction by scanning a QR code on the screen. While it is true that the mounting of the camera sensor is critical in this regard; issues are only compounded when dealing with third-party apps.
When phones are shipped out with “reverse-landscape orientation”, it would be up to third party developers to fix this camera issue. However, most of them do not account for these problems creating a problematic solution for scanning Bitcoin QR codes. Users could turn their phone a certain way to make sure the image is not flipped upside down, but that is not always a guarantee of success.
Moreover, Bitcoin apps making use of the camera will have to take these issues into account as well. Developers can address orientation issues by using the setDisplayOrientation() method and rotate the image as needed. Newer flagship phones will address the camera orientation automatically, but a lot of older – and cheaper – models also suffer from the same issues.
Note from the Author: scanning QR codes upside down is not a major issue on newer devices and some Bitcoin wallets. However, some models may suffer from problems when this occurs.
Source: XDA Developers
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