The Smart Camera

Apple's new iPhone has an improved camera, which is great. Underneath the hood, developers can get access to the camera to use in their own applications, which will lead to some neat stuff beyond just taking pictures. But what I thought about while watching the keynote was that while cameras on phones continue to improve, cameras themselves are still bound to a closed operating system bundled with the camera. Occasionally there are firmware updates, and in the past there have been hacked versions of firmware for cameras that unlocked features that manufacturers chose not to include.

Having a development platform that gives access to the camera allows for such things as custom processing (aka Camerabag) or more sophisticated stuff such as follow focus for video recording. Thinking of a camera as a development platform is an intriguing idea that has been explored in the past - both Kodak and Apple shipped cameras that developers could write apps for (such as the DC265 etc), but that idea never really caught on. It may be a neat trick to be able to run Doom on a phone, but really - is that really that compelling? Evidentially not.

I think that is about to change. Again - the gap between point and shoot cameras and cell phones is closing - and it won't be much longer before many people will simply not buy a new point and shoot, since their phone will do as good a job - and can get new features via the App store. This is certainly the case with me - I love my Fuji point and shoot with it's great EXR mode (instant HDR photography) but I am expecting that my new iPhone will do much the same thing - and much more. Sure - I will halve the number of pixels of my camera - but at least 70% of the pictures I take now are with my old iPhone 3G.

I am not predicting the demise of point and shoots - there are always compelling reasons to have devices optimized for tasks - but it going to be a challenge to make buying that new sub-$200 camera a compelling choice. The maxim is true - the best camera is the one you have with you. Indeed.