Sarah Tew/CNET

Motorola has pulled the Moto X camera out of the smartphone's firmware, and, in what's becoming somewhat of an industry trend, moved it to the Google Play Store as a standalone application.

The move ensures Motorola issues updates with bug fixes and enhancements in a quicker and more direct manner. No longer bottlenecked by carriers, Motorola will be able to make changes and push them out immediately. According to the Google Play listing, the Motorola Camera starts at v3.1.5 and includes the following features:

Brightened camera viewfinder so it's easier to see

Enabled Quick Capture for more Enterprise users IT policies

Bug fixes

It's worth noting that the app does not explicitly name the Moto X -- we might assume Motorola does something similar for future devices as well.

Motorola has employed this strategy for other apps and features, including Touchless Control and Droid Zap. Both of these apps, incidentally, also have been updated in the last few days. Like the camera app, these two were previously integrated into the device firmware.