Suprised At Camera Phones
With new camera phones starting to hit the market, there are a ton of reviews cropping up everywhere. However, this one, from the Boston Globe, is particularly interesting because it’s done by someone who doesn’t necessarily see the point of camera phones, and has decided beforehand that it’s a silly, useless add-on. As he uses the camera phones, he changes his mind a bit (mainly because he’s surprised at the high quality of the photos). However, he still makes the mistake of suggesting that the only use of the camera phone is as a replacement for a regular camera. It’s not. This sort of linear thinking is making people miss the point of a camera phone. When you have a camera that can send photos on you at all times, it opens up new possibilities to do things that you never would have done in the past. Many of those uses haven’t been discovered yet, but people are starting. Hearing stories about people moblogging to “record” interesting elements of their life is a perfect example. You can’t do that with a regular camera. The phone camera opens up that possibility… and as more people start using them, people will discover plenty of new applications – that have nothing to do with what you traditionally use a camera for.
