We all know the iPhone is a huge success. And that might even be an understatement. But now it hasn’t only become the most popular smart phone in the world but also the most popular digital camera. At least, according to data from Flickr:
As you can see the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi has long been the most popular camera to upload photos but recently its usage has been declining and the iPhone is very quickly catching up. It is pretty amazing to have a gadget rule two completely different product categories. I also wonder what this means for the future of digital cameras.
When the first cars were built they were simply horse drawn buggies with an engine stacked on. The first cars was basically horseless carriages. It took decades for the car to transform from horseless carriage to a whole new form; the Automobile.
Digital camera’s are mostly stuck in the ‘Filmless Camera’ stage. One day it will be pretty funny to describe a photo camera as ‘digital’ as there won’t be any other form. Once we leave the analog camera paradigm and make a real switch over to the digital era we will start seeing completely different for factors and functions.
The iPhone is now showing us what it means when we combine technology. The camera isn’t ‘just’ a lens stuck to an iPhone. The fact that you always carry your iPhone, it is always connected to the web and always knows where you are makes it far more effective and efficient than ordinary digital camera’s that is isn’t surprising that it is quickly becoming the most popular camera.
This shift in our perspective of photography and photo cameras is very exciting and I can’t wait to find out what it will lead to.
Yepo! Totally aggree with you Boris. I recently bought my fist iPhone, iPhone 3GS and I can say the camera itself its rocking! Direct upload to Flickr (via mail) + Twitpic (via Twitterfon or Twitpic app) and even Youtube upload (I have already uploaded two videos) out-of-the-box make it for me the top-notch cameraphone out there. Must have. As I wrote in my blog post (apas.gr) for the iPhone review, “iPhone is *the* great mashup of all things internets and everything else. Period.”
But making more than quick snapshots is absolutely impossible for whatever camera phone. It may be used more, but since the listed SLRs are aimed for the professional amateur, that’s only logical.. For the moment, i’ll be taking my EOS 50d everywhere instead of my iPhone. Heavy, yes, but at least it makes decent pictures.
Analogue camera’s still deliver far superior image quality compared to high end digital camera’s available today. As long as the digital image capture technology does some real catching up where it matters most we’ll be waiting for the real switch to the digital era to happen.
Just because most people don’t want to invest time and money to make good pictures doesn’t mean no-one does. For me, it is still important to focus on quality, to constantly improve my skills and to end up with work of art instead of just another snapshot. The fact you don’t want to doesn’t mean a SLR is completely useless, it’s just in a different category, and because of that it’s completely useless to compare an iPhone to an SLR in flickr stats, because as you said, an SLR is only interesting for 1% of the people. That doesn’t mean an iPhone is better, just a different sort of camera.
@Bart and @Olivier: sounds like you are stuck in the old paradigm. :-)
Once upon a time ‘photos’ were expensive and it was important to focus on quality. These days, people don’t take photos because they want to produce something beautiful or to create a work of art. They simply record what happens or use the camera as an alternative to note taking.
These days a ‘good’ camera is only useful for 1% of the people and 1% of the time. The Canon EOS is the SUV of the digital camera world.
You have a good point. It all depends on what your definition of ‘decent pictures’ and ‘a good camera’ is. In the past we cared more about the quality of photos and now we seem to care more about mobility, connectivity, location and easy of use. That is the paradigm shift I was trying to illustrate in my post.
I just cannot believe that Apple has not delivered streaming technology for the 3GS video camera yet..letting working apps from UStream.tv et al. hang in the App Store approval loop.
And BTW those apps were already working on the jailbroken iPhone3G, before its camera was officially declared a video camera. Go figure. Apple is acting very weird on this one. Makes me tend to agree with Jason Calacanis recent post on Apple turning into Microsoft..
What is the best: these days I use my iPhone more then my Hassie with a P30+; it’s always in my pocket. It’s not the quality of the camera but the vision of the person who uses the instrument.