“The iPhone 4 is about to become the most popular camera used on Flickr, while traditional point-and-shoot cameras are experiencing a sure and steady decline, according to newly released data (via PCWorld),” Darrell Etherington reports for GigaOM.
“The numbers are a good indication that, even four years after its initial release, the iPhone is still disrupting markets,” Etherington reports. “The iPhone topped Flickr’s list of user cameras in 2009 following the release of the iPhone 3GS, and that was back when the best iPhone camera boasted only a 3.2-megapixel resolution. The iPhone 4 has a 5-megapixel sensor, but leaving aside tech specs, many agree that it performs better (on paper) than some of the more powerful cameras found on Android and other devices. The iPhone’s camera is another example of Apple’s philosophy that user experience trumps a hardware capabilities arms race every time.”
Etherington reports, “This time, though, the data specifies the iPhone 4, not Apple’s entire line of iPhone devices, which speaks to the popularity of Apple’s latest smartphone.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jax44” for the heads up.]
Add Cisco’s Flip to the list of victims.
I think the article impliedly includes the recently noted demise of the Flip!
I rarely carry my p&s camera anymore… the camera in my iPhone 4 is good enough most of the time, and I always have it with me.
True… it’s good enough. However, in trying to doing everything it doesn’t do some things well. The report is also deceiving. The reason that it it becoming the most dominant camera is because there’s such a wide array of cameras out there.
If iPhones account for 10% of the shots and P&S account for 2% each… for a combined 50%… well, then… I’m not sure if the article is saying iPhone is used more than ALL P&S cameras combined or that it’s just becoming the most dominant one.
The other points regarding the ease of upload are also relevant.
actually if all iphone models were combined they would account for far more than all point n shoots combined. yes, there are more p-n-s camera models, but their combined use is still far less.
As someone who has purchased over a dozen P&S cameras over the years, including some of the earliest Kodaks, the DC20 and DC40, I find it amazing that I don’t carry a P&S anymore, but use my iPhone4. If I do carry something beside my iPhone, it’s a DSLR.
iPhone is not only replacing traditional still cameras, it is also replacing video cameras. And hand-held gaming devices. If you can write an app for any particular function, an iPhone will replace a single-tasking device that is made only for that particular function.
I hear you can buy a machine specifically designed for just taking photographs. I love these antique single-function devices!
I loves my butter churner!
😉
Of course we’ll see iPhones displacing regular cameras on these sites, because iPhones are incredibly convenient and you can upload pictures directly to the site… but the iPhone is still not good enough to take quality photos. Issues include:
– no optical zoom (digital zoom is shit useless, I disable it in my own P&S)
– mediocre quality low-light pictures (when you want to keep flash off to keep natural colours)
– LED flash has resulted in some really off-colour pictures, unless you’re really close to the subject
There’s other issues less important to me, like narrow field of view and lack of shutter speed control, but for that I’d happily carry a proper camera for.
As a side note, screw adding megapixels above maybe 8; the image sensor on a plastic-covered lens that small just isn’t good enough to justify the larger filesizes they produce. Hell, I wish my 7.1 MP camera had a lower resolution, if it meant better low-light pictures.
But… But…..
I want to carry 74 items with me at all times.
I swear apple just wants to make my life easier… I will not give in to apple!
Wait… Nvm.
What about high quality optics and the ability to shoot pictures/movies in low lighting conditions? How will the iPhone’s camera displace the point-and-shoot cameras with real optics?
It won’t. But most people don’t care because they are not going to buy and carry around that second (or third) device when iPhone is always there and does the job 99% of the time.
And what about optical zoom capability and stabilization?
This is not to say you can’t make excellent pictures/movies using the iPhone, given optimal conditions.
Stabilization can be applied to a movie while it is being imported into iMovie for editing. Optical zoom? Well, that would be difficult to implement in a device that is so thin. 🙂 But you can do digital zoom too, as part of “post production.”
… zoom? OK, now that we know – you are NOT a real photographer. Maybe you take “pictures” with a camera, that’s about as close as you get. My own compact camera is just a tad thinner than an iPhone and offers 4X zoom, starting at a sweet wide angle.
When the iPhone can take an acceptable picture, it is an excellent choice. Good lens and all that. When you are too far away, when the light is low, when any number of other issues present themselves, then you need a better camera. And, stabilization is – like zoom – POORLY (at best) applied after the fact. In post-prod. Only wanna-bees would even think of that as a serious option.
Hear hear. Now, I only consider myself an amateur photographer, but understand the real value of optical zoom and in-camera stabilization over digital equivalents.
Which compact camera do you have?
what compact camera is thinner than an iphone 4? let alone with zoom….(the iphone 4 has a zoom, but it’s digital not optical).
Of course I’m not a “real” photographer. LOL. Most people are NOT. That’s my point.
And please tell me the name of that camera that is “just a tad thinner than an iPhone” (4) and has a 4X optical zoom. Even a non-photographer like me may want to check that out. (FYI, using iPhoto to “zoom in” is great. I just take the photo without worrying too much about precise aim, then “crop out” the irrelevant portion of the photo later in iPhoto.)
I think the “real” photographers in the crowd here don’t understand how most people take photos these days. 🙂
ken1w: No one’s saying Apple should or can add an optical zoom to the iPhone. But digital zoom in “post production” or with an app, or when taking the picture, will never give good results, even at a mere 2x digital zoom.
Proof? By analogy, run an app that only runs at iPhone resolution, at full screen on an iPad, or use the Universal Access zoom on your Mac. You could try and sharpen the image in post-processing, but you can never replace the missing image data.
Stabilization is more a concern for still images than video–you can’t remove motion blur easily even with Photoshop filters. I don’t know why Apple’s camera app doesn’t offer it, but 3rd party apps at least have an option to use the gyros and accelerometers to shoot when motion is below a certain level. Since this can delay a critical shot, this is no substitute for a real image stabilization system. Again, not that the iPhone *needs* or should have one, but just another area where a jack of all trades cannot replace a dedicated device if you want above-average quality.
Well, I think the point is that most people will not buy or carry around another device when an iPhone does the job 99% of the time. And we are talking about iPhone replacing a “point-and-shoot” camera, not a higher-end camera with a big lens that costs more than an iPhone (sometimes just for the lens). For most people, the result from “zooming in” on a portion of an iPhone photo in iPhoto produces satisfactory results, especially for online services such as Flickr (which again is the topic of the article). If you’re planning to produce a poster-sized printout from a photo, then use a “real” camera.
High-quality dedicated cameras will still be around, both for photo and video. But their usage (as a percentage of total) will be overwhelmed by people who use an iPhone. Why? Because, in the past, most people did not carry around a camera everywhere; they just pulled it out for “special” occasions (if they actually owned a camera). Today, the camera is in their smartphone. So a lot MORE people are EACH taking a lot MORE photos. And iPhone even makes it easy to get that photo onto a service like Flickr, without getting it onto a computer first; most cameras can’t do that no matter how good the picture quality.
I’m not arguing the point that people are more likely to just carry an iPhone vs also carrying a camera–heck I did exactly that and I only a 3GS, and for sure it’s great being able to upload “as it happens”.
But I have no illusions about the quality–pictures in a well-lit bar look fine on the iPhone screen, but look like crap on the computer. The LED flash on friends’ iPhone 4s produced mixed results at best. Though better lit they were still grainy–fine for scaled down Facebook pictures and for un-demanding Flikr users, but never mind poster-sized prints, most of my iPhoto pics don’t make good 4×6 prints.
Anyway, my point is simply to dispel the idea that iPhones and smartphones will seriously jeopardize camera sales, even compact ones, for the next couple years at least. Women especially are able to carry phones and compact cameras at all times
How many people have you seen with a camera in a bar?
For most people, carrying a “real” camera with them is definitely intentional. I think phone cams will soon be the defacto method for taking casual photos and especially spontaneous ones.
There’s probably an app fir that.
True, the iPhone is not flexible like a regular camera, but upgrading to the 5 will supply better images than the 3GS I have now. Waiting patiently.
The report is misleading. Flickr is seeing such a high iPhone volume because the iPhone makes it easy to snap a photo and upload it very quickly.
However, the lack of any optical zoom is a real setback. What we’ll see is the demise of cheap point and shooters which only have limited optical zoom (like 3x), and the increase in cameras with large optical zooms but not the pro-style, interchanagable lenses.
I just bought my wife a new Olympus camera for her birthday, because she wanted to take good photos and wanted a good optical zoom. For $150, we got a great, relatively small camera with 15X optical zoom, HD video, and quite a few other features. She wanted to take photos and video of our kids playing sports, and while the iPhone has been great at that, it is definitely limited in zoom capabilities and in low light situations.
As the adage goes, “The best camera is the camera you have with you.”
This is the best quote on here so far.
Agree.
i’ll stay with my Speed Graphic as long as they sell flash bulbs.
I can understand this. My iphone4 has replaced my 7.2 Megapixel Sony Cybershot because of the over better picture quality. The quality different is really easy to see when viewing the photos on an iPad.
I still prefer the quality of my Canon Elph, but the conveniency and quality of my iPhone 4 keeps the Canon in the drawer most of the time. The 3 things I use rarely or not at all since I started with the iPhone 3Gs: Nintendo GBA, Sony video cam, and the Canon Elph.
Picture quality is excellent for it’s size but what I like most is geotagged photos.
Add to the list: Cargo pants. 🙂
The iPhone will/is taking a chunk out of the point-n-shoot camera market but, unlike the Flip, it is not going to replace the P-N-S.
Now the disposable camera market on the other hand . . .
Camera phones may be taking a bite out of point-and-shoot camera sales, but we’re talking about the very bottom of the point-and-shoot market. There are many different levels of pocket cameras on the market these days, some of them fairly expensive and extremely sophisticated. There’s no way that the iPhone or any other camera phone is going to replace high-end pocket cameras for the majority of users, and this is currently the fastest growing segment of the compact camera market. This appears to be another one of those articles that turns a simple observation into a wildly-speculative generalization. Personally, I’d say that it’s no great loss to the digital photography market if those who are satisfied with the image quality of a camera phone stop buying cheap point-and-shoot cameras.
Ken – you hit the nail on the head. Few people do serious photography with p&s cameras anyway – as you note.
The iPhone is the new digital Brownie camera. In fact it is in some ways even better. (Tho in others more limited.)
“Personally, I’d say that it’s no great loss to the digital photography market if those who are satisfied with the image quality of a camera phone stop buying cheap point-and-shoot cameras.”
Unfortunately there is a great loss. this is revenue to the camera companies, and it is important revenue that supports the upper end models. I imagine that some of these companies may have trouble surviving or the price of better quality p&s cameras will have to go up to make up for lost revenue.
A lot of people here are correct in spite of different views. It all has to do with what you want. But even the Bizlaw who bought the Olympus for his wife, is probably going to upgrade that camera a lot later than otherwise as it will not see the frequency of use due to the cell phone cam that will always be on hand.
Another point is that flickr sees a rather slanted slice of the market. While there are many avid photographers there – some using advanced p&s cams, most people post their snapshots, and do not really care about the cam – as long as it is there.
Are you saying sales of cheap P&S cameras support the high-end/premium models? This runs counter to many (most?) markets. Sales of premium computers, cars, etc all supporting the low-end cousins, where margins are razor thin and only have real value in two ways: to pump up market share (which, as Apple users, we know is a hopeless race to the bottom), and to try “hooking” users into the brand.
The iPhone camera is unbelievably good. And all the photo apps.
The iPhone camera is perfectly good for outdoor pics but it really sucks in low-light situations. Of course one cannot expect it to have optical zoom in any form with such a thin device. I have an Olympus XZ1 just for indoor pics and low-light photography. Otherwise, the iPhone is my main camera 90% of the time.
Less crap for me lug around? Heck yes. If I’m going to do some serious shooting, I’m bringing my DSLR.
It’s the little-and-large thing.
Little iP3 or 4 sits in your pocket and is good for casual shooting, still and video.
Large DSLR (or my Panasonic GH-2) rolls out as the Big Gun when needed for serious stuff.
They make a pretty good pair.
I know it’s very unlikely to happen, but I wish Apple would make a micro four-thirds type of camera with an easy but sophisticated user interface and easy upload to the Internet.
There’s a lot of consumer pain in the camera market—just like there was in the mobile phone market before Apple innovated the iPhone.