Evidence of raw image support and burst mode photos was spotted earlier this month in Android source code, leading people to speculate that these features would be coming soon to Android phones. This speculation has turned out to be true as Google has confirmed that these features are present in a portion of the current Android operating system.
Google spokeswoman Gina Scigliano told CNET that both raw image support and burst mode shooting are present now in Android’s hardware abstraction layer (HAL). This is the underlying level of code that communicates with the phone’s hardware.  In a future release of Android, an API for these camera options will be made available to developers, who can then use these features in their apps.

Google’s Nexus 5 already supports burst mode shooting, but this new API will bring this feature to other hardware. This improved camera ability will help put Android on par with the iPhone and other camera phones like the Windows Phone-powered Lumia 1520 and 1020.