Small group? Last I heard, a lot of people do work, and quite a few in places that don't allow cameras. Why should people who love their devices and use them in meaningful ways be deprived of them because of some gee-whiz W?BIC type of user?
Exactly what kind of progress are we looking at from camera phones? More crappy photos?
Given the way the market looks however, mediocre integrated phones are here to stay, and I think those whose workplace forbids cameras will have a tough time replacing their devices.
I think they have no place in phones (or pdas for that matter). I am ot a big fan of convergence. (I can say that since I only occasionally travel long distances. If I had to travel all the time for business etc. I might say otherwise, but only for the sake of security - not losing items). I want one device dedicated to doing one thing WELL. I don't care that I have to carry more items. Phone companies and carriers should work together to make better, more reliable phones and not worry about about how much crap they can cram into the smallest form factor. I was looking to upgrade my phone, but all the phones my carrier had were 300.00 camera crap phones with 500 games, a built-in word processor, tax estimator, swiss army knife and a bottle opener. I acutally went back to my Moto StarTAC. It's solidly built, gets excellent battery life, has an excellent speaker, has great signal reception, and no camera, games, calendar or other crap.
1) If you were going to go to all that trouble... whats to stop you from bringing in a variety of micro-cameras...
2) ...I am quite concerned by the statement that most government departments are so hellbent on secrecy...
3) ...why dont the business supply a service to disable the camera easily (e.g. a tamper-evident sticker or permanent paint or epoxy)...
Lets see some truimp for common sense, not paranoia.
Surur
Right on! You said it better than i ever could. Going into a tizzy about these cameras is a bit like freaking out because horses are scared of these new-fangled motor-carriages and i want my carriage without a motor, goshdarnit! :lol:
ok, maybe i overstretched a tad, but you get the picture... pun intended..
Dont you people understand that the thing that is fueling the current upgrade cycle for mobile phones are the cameras? Cellphones are consumer accessories, not fueled by business needs. Why do you think cell phones have colour screens?
While I'll concede that consumer demand has likely risen for cameras phones and that any phone with a camera must have a color screen, BUT Nokia and SE have many phone models on the market that have color screens with no camera. I own both a SE T610 and a Nokia 3650. In neither case, was the camera ever a consideration, but in both cases, the color screen certainly was. This holds true for many of my friends and coworkers as well. Everyone I know wants a color screen, but most don't care much for whether a camera is included or not.
Yeah, it seemed to be a cool novelty when they first started coming out but as time went on and so many people seemed to have something with a built-in camera the novelty wore off because the camera stunk. And now looking back it was just a novelty to sell electronics – nothing really useful.
The only place I saw some usefulness was in the service business where you might find a tech person or mechanic taking a picture of some part so for reference later or to make sure to order the correct part.
Now what we ought to have is an 8 megapixel camera :shocked!: with a copy of PPC2003SE running on it :shocked!: with all of your favorite apps :shocked!: accessible using the rear viewing screen :shocked!: . Now that's a REAL camera 8) :mrgreen: 8) !!!
(Maybe they could build a phone into it - but that would probably be a novelty item.)
... Nokia and SE have many phone models on the market that have color screens with no camera...
Interisting that you mention Nokia which has had a steadily falling market share. The latest analisys conclude that this is due to 2 factors:
1 - no flip-phones
2 - not enough cameras/camera phones too expensive
The "i don't mind carrying extra items around" crew is at a serious disadvantage, most people want to carry a phone + pda + camera without looking like a geek/tourist. This is unlikely to change...
Quote:
Exactly what kind of progress are we looking at from camera phones? More crappy photos?
This misses the point of camera-phones by a huge margin (apart from being sanctimonously arrogant) which is neither to be a artistic-level recorder-of-genius nor to advance the status of the human race but instead a way to quickly and simply record ..something. Not all pictures have to be as good as possible...
1) If you were going to go to all that trouble... whats to stop you from bringing in a variety of micro-cameras...
2) ...I am quite concerned by the statement that most government departments are so hellbent on secrecy...
3) ...why dont the business supply a service to disable the camera easily (e.g. a tamper-evident sticker or permanent paint or epoxy)...
Lets see some truimp for common sense, not paranoia.
Surur
Right on! You said it better than i ever could. Going into a tizzy about these cameras is a bit like freaking out because horses are scared of these new-fangled motor-carriages and i want my carriage without a motor, goshdarnit! :lol:
While I certainly understand the basic premise of these arguments, let's be realistic here. No company or government building is going to submit to argument #1. Their counter-argument will be that you shouldn't be bringing in micro-cameras either. Argument #2 is a moot point. I've spent a great deal of time as a consultant for high-tech manufacterers and there's no way a company such as Intel would risk photographed information getting out to AMD. As for argument #3, a tamper-resistant sticker could easily be bypassed by someone carrying additional stickers and permanent paint is more backwards than just having asking the phone manufacterers to supply a full-featured phone without a camera. Perhaps an electronic based system where a cover is snapped on and can only be snapped off by the security officials (similar to what they do in discount clothing stores with those large ink-based devices) might work, but that won't be a practical solution anytime in the near future.
We are getting to a point now where if we want to choose a phone without a camera, we have to sacrifice numerous other features as well... Look at this thread. There certainly seems to be a greater than 50% sampling of folks who don't care much for the camera. We're just asking for options.
Exactly what kind of progress are we looking at from camera phones? More crappy photos?
Knowing you from digitalmediathoughts.com I know that this is a photographer speaking. But some ppl use their phonecams not to take a photograph, but to snap a memory. It works for me, as the following two (at random) examples might show:
Recently I met this old friend of my brothers, whom he hadn't seen in 10 years by accident). I snapped the picture, sent it by e-mail to my brother with some details. It worked better than just a message, since it also showed how his friend looked now.
The other moment: when my mother visited my brother in Italy, she was not too happy when she left (she doesn't like flying alone a lot...). My brother was a little worried, so when she came out of the gate, I took a snapshot, and sent it to him by email. He was very pleased to see her smiling.
I think you wouldn't care for the photographic capabilities of those pics, but my brother sure liked receiving them. That made me mighty glad I had a cameraphone with me on both occasions. Of course, it wasn't necessary to take those pics. And these weren't moments where I'd care to take a picture with a dedicated still camera. But snapping was easy, and it sure added a lot to the message that I wanted to bring across.
... Nokia and SE have many phone models on the market that have color screens with no camera...
Interisting that you mention Nokia which has had a steadily falling market share. The latest analisys conclude that this is due to 2 factors:
1 - no flip-phones
2 - not enough cameras/camera phones too expensive
Thanks. I was actually addressing your implied point that phones strictly have color screens because of the cameras. I already conceded that the demand within general population for camera phones is rising, but I can tell you sincerely that the vast majority of my coworkers (I'm a business consultant) find the camera to be the least-needed/most-hassle-inducing feature.
I find it interesting that while no corporater companies would deploy phone cameras for employees to take work-related pictures on the field, these same companies are afraid that other copmpanies will deploy phone cameras to their employees/corporate spies to take work-related pictures "on the field" (aka spying).
that being said, I do recognize that some people don't want a camera. For some phones -- it's there and makes the phone cost more, but the quality of the shots don't justify the prices. To that, I support any company that makes models that both include or omit a camera.
And for those that want camera-less bluetooth phones: look at the SE T39 (GSM), SE T68(i) (GSM), SE T608 (CDMA). There's also the Ericsson R520, T60d; Motorola A830 (optional), Timeport 270c, and more.
Hate 'em!!
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