How-to guide · Media & capture Take a selfie

Actiontake_selfie
Audience Motor Vision
Time Under 5 seconds
Permissions None for the launch — the camera app handles its own camera permission
What this is: A spoken or typed request that opens the camera app with the front-facing lens already active — no opening the camera, finding the flip-camera control, and tapping it. One phrase, and the viewfinder is showing your face. You still take the picture yourself; Aside doesn’t auto-snap.
Try it now

Open Aside on your phone, then say or type:

“Take a selfie.”

Aside confirms in the chat history and the camera comes up with the front lens already selected. Tap the shutter when you’re ready.

Step by step

  1. Open Aside

    Tap the Aside icon, or trigger your assist gesture if you’ve set Aside as your default assistant. Aside opens to the orb in its idle state — calm, slowly breathing — with the prompt “Tell me everything,” beneath it.

    The Aside main screen at idle on a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Across the top: the word ‘Aside’ with a red dot, a small mono status pill reading ‘● IDLE’, the cost counter ‘$5.537 today’, and a ‘NEW’ link top-right. Centered in the screen is a large warm-paper-colored orb with a soft brown core, slowly breathing. Below the orb, in large bold type: ‘Tell me everything,’. Below that, in lighter type: ‘Tap the orb or type below.’. Near the bottom is a clay-colored pill button reading ‘Make Aside my assistant’ and a row of four mono pills: ‘history’, ‘type’, ‘muted’, ‘memory · 4’. The build-stamp footer reads ‘Aside 0.2.6 · 1f482727ffbc-dirty · 2026-05-06T12:58:21Z’.
    Aside open at idle. The orb breathes; nothing else is happening.

  2. Say or type the request

    Hold the orb and say “Take a selfie,” or tap the type pill at the bottom and key the same phrase in. Phrasing is forgiving — “selfie,” “open the front camera,” and “camera, front lens” all map to the same action.

    Take a selfie.
    The Aside main screen with text-input mode active. The bottom of the screen now shows an outlined text field labeled ‘Message Aside’ with the typed sentence ‘Take a selfie.’ inside it. To the right of the text field is a clay-red circular Send button with a paper-plane glyph. The orb is still visible in the upper portion of the screen, in its idle state.
    The phrase typed into the chat input, ready to send.

  3. See Aside confirm

    Aside replies with a short spoken acknowledgement and an action note chip showing the selfie launch. The chat history sheet slides up so you can read the confirmation; behind it the camera app is already coming up on the front lens.

    The Aside main screen with the chat history bottom sheet covering the lower half of the screen. The status pill at the top reads ‘● READY’ and the cost counter shows ‘$5.639 today’. Behind a slight scrim the dimmed orb and the words ‘Tell me everything,’ are still partly visible. Inside the bottom sheet are three stacked entries: a small mono label ‘YOU’ above the line ‘Take a selfie.’; a label ‘ASIDE’ above the line ‘Opening the front camera for a selfie.’; and a clay-tinted ‘ASIDE NOTE’ chip showing ‘▶ selfie camera’ — the explicit action marker.
    Aside confirms on screen and aloud. The action chip names the launch.

  4. Camera opens on the front lens

    Your phone’s camera app comes to the foreground with the front-facing lens already active — the viewfinder fills the screen and you see yourself, mirrored, ready to frame the shot. Tap the shutter when you like the framing. Aside doesn’t take the photo for you — that decision stays with you.

    The Samsung default camera app foregrounded, in still-image mode with the front-facing lens active. The viewfinder fills the screen showing the room the phone is in — pale walls, a ceiling vent, and overhead lighting in soft focus, since the phone is lying on a desk facing up. Across the top right are the flash icon, an aspect-ratio toggle, a settings cog, and an effects icon. Two small selfie face/group icons sit just above the control row near the center. Below the viewfinder the standard camera control row: a thumbnail of the most recent photo on the left, a large white shutter button in the center, and a camera-flip icon on the right. Beneath the controls a row of mode tabs reads ‘PORTRAIT PHOTO VIDEO MORE’, with PHOTO highlighted. The Samsung 3-button nav sits at the very bottom.
    Camera open on the front lens. You frame and tap the shutter.
Wanted the rear lens for a normal photo? Use Open the camera — same flow, rear-facing lens.
Note: Aside doesn’t press the shutter for you. That’s deliberate — nothing about your image is captured, stored, or shared by the launch alone. The picture is taken only when you tap.