Why Apple isn’t making a point-and-shoot camera
I’m in the market for a new laptop and since I’ve been burned by my last two PC’s I’m considering buying a Mac. Since we’re on the verge of a refresh of the MacBook line, I’ve been spending time looking at the numerous Apple rumours that flood the web. In my browsing I came across a story arguing that Apple is likely working on a point-and-shoot camera (Apple Working on Point-and-shoot Camera?).
While commenting on Apple rumours is a little outside of the scope of ivrytwr, this is such a strange rumour that I feel compelled to discuss it.
Why would anyone think that Apple is working on a point-and-shoot camera? In his biography by Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs was quoted as saying he desired to reinvent three industries: television, textbooks, and photography. Apple’s new iTunes U initiative represents a significant step towards Jobs’s vision of reinventing the textbook. The much-rumoured Apple television (which may possibly be announced at this months WWDC conference), could signal an attempt to reinvent television.
The writers of iLounge.com see a gap in Jobs’s vision – photography. This gap and a meeting between Jobs and the CEO of the camera manufacturer Lytro indicate to iLounge that Apple must be working on their own version of a point-and-shoot camera.
I, however, take issue with the claim that Apple has not reinvented photography. Apple’s work with the iPhone has ushered in the greatest change in photography since the introduction of the digital camera. Before I go any further, I should note that Apple doesn’t deserve the only credit for reinventing photography. Smart phones in general have reinvented the way people take photos. Apple does deserve credit for bringing the first popular smart phone to market with the original iPhone.
So have has the iPhone reinvented photography?
The iPhone has changed photography in two significant ways. First, the iPhone raised the bar (and continues to raise the bar) for mobile photography. Second, the iPhone has changed how people share and view photos.
Cell phone camera before the iPhone were barely functional. I remember my first cell phone camera. It was on a Nokia phone and had a whopping 1.2 megapixels. Photos, even in good lighting, were blurry messes. More importantly, even if I wanted to share my blurry photos, my options were limited. Since my phone didn’t have an internet connection, photo sharing was restricted to low-resolution texts.
The iPhone changed all this. Now smart phone cameras take pictures comparable to any point-and-shoot camera on the market. These photos can be edited and shared easily via apps and 3G and 4G connections. Photo sharing is the single greatest change brought about by the iPhone.
Photography is based upon two different actions – taking a photo and sharing a photo. While the iPhone didn’t reinvent the way people take photos, it has reinvented the way people share them. By marrying a relatively high quality camera with a wireless internet connection, smart phones have allowed photos to be shared instantly. This new-found immediacy of photography has impact how news is reported via citizen journalism; now anyone with a smart phone can record an event for posterity.
The iPhone has also created a platform where a company like Instagram could take a relatively simple idea, that users should be able to easily edit and share their mobile pictures, and grow that idea into a billion dollar product in a mere two years. While Apple did not create Instagram, they did lay the foundation for the company’s success. This model of photo sharing is so popular that Facebook, the current leader in online photo sharing, has purchased Instagram, thus signalling that the social media giant sees mobile photography as the future.
If anything, photography is the only one of the three industries that Apple has clearly reinvented. iTunes U is still in the early stages of its development and the Apple television is little more than rumour and conjecture at this point. As far as I’m concerned, to suggest that Apple has yet to reinvent the photography industry is to show a profound misunderstanding of the impact the iPhone has had on how photos are shared.
While it’s dangerous to ever make predictions about the future of technology, I’d be extremely surprised if Apple still felt the need to reinvent the camera.
What do you think? Will Apple reinvent the camera? Would a company be wise to jump into the flagging point-and-shoot camera market? How have smart phones changed the way you take and share pictures?
