Dear Canon: Time to add communications to your low-end cameras
scripting.com
scripting.com
Sure the phone on the iPhone doesn't work, but who uses the phone these days?
Is the one anti-iPhone rant I really hate. He asks:
If you ranked all the things an iPhone does by how well it does it where would It's a Phone be on the list?
I'd say #1... because whatever else is wrong with the iPhone it is a damn good phone (it has even replaced the Nokia 3310 in my #1 rank of "Best Phone that is Actually a Phone").
Bleh.
On the topic of the article; the phone makers have a massive advantage over Canon in this area. They alreayd have a data connection on a device you carry with you for much of the day. Slapping on a camera is relatively trivial. Canon need to add in a data connection - which is much more complicated.
A better approach would be for Canon to partner with phone manufacturers to build better cameras for phones.
On my Nexus one, I can sms, GTalk, facebook, email etc etc far easier than voice calling someone and waffling around to a point and interrupting them.
I think low end cameras are doomed whatever. Same with mp3 players.
I emailed them all some photos from my phone (Droid Eris) during the game. My dad was amazed by the quality of pics from the camera (relative to what he remembered of phone cameras), and we ended up having this exact conversation. Should there be an affordable non-phone but always-networked mid-level camera? He uses a cheap, yearly pre-pay phone and has no interest in paying $100 a month or more for phone+data, but he would get a camera with a small monthly fee for data use in a heartbeat. (He's a photo buff with some higher-end cameras, but that's obviously a whole different market.) I suspect he's the minority and more and more people will just move towards smart phones (high monthly fees or not), but I wonder if there's a market there.
It's time for one of the products that are in Apple's cross-hairs to do the necessary innovation before Apple does.
Yes please — and don't try to convince the world that you had it before Apple, because it doesn't matter unless someone actually wants it. It makes me sick that the only desirable tablet right now is the iPad, which was predicted by years of rumors. Nobody saw it coming?
I look forward to when it's as easy to make a startup around hardware as it is to make one around software.
But that's not true. My android phone has a 'share' button in the gallery, from which I can choose a variety of destinations, including Picasa and Facebook (and any other app that registers itself as a picture sharing endpoint).
I just don't want extra addon-service crap in my camera.
Uploading can get images to durable storage, so they can't be lost. Uploading can also make images available to co-workers.
Yes, the shooter can do the upload after the fact, or interrupt, but automatic/loose-real-time means that it happens reliabily and in a timely fashion. The alternative is an assistant.