Google has big plans for Android, not just for Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie but also for future versions after that. One possible feature that Google are toying with is the ability to take photos on your Android smartphone tuned to the current weather. Almost all digital cameras, including those in Android devices, can be configured for different light conditions like indoors, outdoors, sunny, cloudy, florescent and so on. What Google is suggesting is that these settings can be determined by cross referencing your current location with the weather forecast.

According to a patent filed by Google, the Mountain View company wants to give Android the ability to process photos and automatically adjust the white balance, hue, saturation, sharpness, or contrast based on an ambient lighting value derived from the weather conditions at you current location.

The patent filing goes on to say that the ambient lighting value will be changed depending on the weather, either sunny or cloudy. Your GPS location can also be used to detect if you are indoors or not. What this means in practice is that the “auto” setting will have an option to adjust the photo according to this ambient light/weather information. It will most likely be optional and of course is dependent on the phone having network access (over 3G or 4G) and having access to your location. The GPS doesn’t necessarily need to be activated on your phone as Android can get your rough location, good enough for a weather forecast, from the nearest cell towers.

Of course this is only a patent filing and it could be years before Google actually manage to implement this commercially. However it is an interesting idea.

What do you think? Would you trust your smartphone to process your photos based on the weather forecast?