How To: Get the New "Eye Experience" Camera on Your HTC One M8 Right Now

As carriers finalize their variations of the Android 4.4.4 update, we're left with only brief glimpses of what the new "Eye Experience" holds in store for us while we wait. However, thanks to a system dump of an updated European HTC One M8 and some clever hackery by donmarkoni, we can now install the new camera app on any variant of the HTC One M8.

Now bare in mind that the port is missing a couple of features, those being Voice Selfies (voice-activated photos) and Crop-Me-In (inserting your front-facing selfie with the rear camera's view). If you are willing to live without those and have a rooted HTC One M8 (no M7 support at this time) with a custom recovery, here's how to get the new camera installed.

Step 1: Download the Camera File

The ZIP is installed the same way you would a ROM file, so download the Android 4.4.4 Camera .zip file on your M8 and reboot into Recovery mode.

The easiest way to get there is to press and hold the Power and Volume Down buttons until you see the bootloader menu appear, then just scroll down to the Recovery option using the Volume keys and press the Power button.

This mod should work with any ROM based off the original Sense 4.4.3 framework, which means AOSP and GPE users need not apply.

Step 2: Flash in Custom Recovery

When your recovery boots up (TWRP shown here), tap Install, then select the ZIP file, which should be in your Downloads folder unless you moved it.

Once selected, wipe along the bottom to install. When that's done, select Wipe from the main menu, select Advanced, then wipe Cache and Dalvik Cache. When all that is squared away, go ahead and reboot your device.

Step 3: Remove Odex File

You'll have the updated camera once your device has booted back up, but there is one more step required before the app will open up—you must remove the ODEX file that was associated with the older camera.

Using a root-capable file explorer, like ES File Explorer, navigate to /system/priv-app/ and delete the file labeled Camera.odex.

Now just reboot your device one more time and you're all set.

Step 4: Enjoy Your New Camera Experience

In addition to the new Split Capture andPhotobooth modes, you'll enjoy all the under-the-hood software improvements to the camera as well.

Reverting Back to Stock

If you run into a bug or are just not feeling the new camera, you can easily flash the stock camera back the same way you installed the updated version. Download the Android 4.4.3 Camera .zip file and use the guide above to revert back.

Hopefully the upcoming release of Lollipop gives carriers enough incentive to get the Android 4.4.4 OTA pushed out soon, but for now this will definitely hold me over.

What's your new favorite mode? Are pictures coming out better for you? Share them and let us know what you think of the new camera in the comments below, as well as on our Facebook and Twitter feeds.