
Dear Canon: Time to add communications to your low-end cameras - idiginous
http://scripting.com/stories/2010/06/29/dearCanonTimeToAddCommunic.html
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ErrantX
I know it's only at the opening to the article but this:

 _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.

~~~
axod
FWIW, I had an iPhone for 2 years or so. I probably made about 20 voice calls
on it. I don't know it that's typical or not, but I agree - less people use
the phone these days.

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.

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telemachos
Last week my wife was able to snag us free tickets to a Yankee game. My father
and his two brothers were all long-time New Yorkers, but they're scattered
now, and none of us had been inside the new stadium up until then.

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.

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raimondious
Most importantly,

 _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.

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thristian
Interestingly, Thom Hogan (a well-known Nikon commentator) recently published
a fairly similar list as suggestions for Nikon to put into their DSLRs:

<http://bythom.com/design2010.htm>

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arantius
The article talks about simple sharing to online services, then says "Apple
and Google still do not have this functionality."

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).

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michaelbuckbee
You could get really close to this with an Eye-Fi (SD Card that will upload to
wherever you want over WiFi) and a MiFi (mobile WiFi hotspot).

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ojbyrne
Why not their high-end cameras?

~~~
jseifer
I'm guessing that most professionals would probably want to do post processing
of the photos before uploading them.

~~~
anamax
Publishing != uploading.

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.

