Camera Phone Marketing is Out of Focus
Even as more people are going out and buying (and using) camera phones, there’s the beginning of a backlash on the cameras. People are noticing, for example that the cameras are really terrible. The images are awful and tiny. While this is understandable, based on what you’re getting, it may cause people to feel cheated and lose interest in using their camera phones. I know I have a cheap camera phone that I’ve used about five times – and the first four were to demonstrate the feature to people who wanted to see how it worked. As this article points out, to defend against this issue carriers are even inventing a new category of snapshots, called “disposable images”. They’re suggesting (as most people quickly learn by themselves) that you not plan on taking photos you plan to save with your digital camera. Instead, you’re just supposed to use it to take simple quick images. Of course, this is a problem that will clearly get solved over time as the quality of the cameras in camera phones improve. The real question is whether or not consumers are okay with waiting.
