http://connect.dpreview.com/post/6528930817/smartphones-of-the-future?utm_source=notification&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=generic

The whole thrust of the article was hardware based which somewhat misses the point of smartphone photography. It really isn’t about the hardware at all. I know this is a somewhat strange thing to say as the smartphone is a piece of technology but the photography part has always been the least developed. Now many manufacturers will deny this but the truth would seem to me that the amount of money they spend on developing the camera hardware compared to screen technology would probably to be small. Equally, if the new arial arrangement in a phone isn’t optimised then very quickly the phone manufacturer will know about it – think of all the problems Apple got themselves into with with the iPhone 4. The camera has never been a deal breaker.

There is, of course, one reason for this. Photography on a smartphone is not about the hardware but rather the software. Anyone interested in making images on a smartphone will have their own favourite image manipulation software. This is where the real creative genius can be let loose – which of course isn’t much use to a hardware review site such as DPReview. Most people, I believe, buy smartphones for the convenience they bring. The ability to have access to the internet, calendar, phone, camera etc in one place is the key issue. Beyond that you have software delivery loyalty i.e. iTunes/App Store v Google Play/Amazon App Store. Once you have bought into one of these systems you become very reticent to change and so this then defines what upgrade path you can follow. The camera attached to whichever smartphone is almost irrelevant. People make the most of the camera provided by using, yes you guessed it, software.

So it is fine talking about this technology and that technology but in the end people buy a smartphone for many other reasons than the camera it might be packing.

Simon Marchini
WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk