Comments on: Mobile Trends: The Cell Phone Body Count

By: David Adams

David Adams — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:02:02 +0000

Maybe a little premature. Instant film cameras (polaroid) were predicted to kill off the film SLR cameras as well. They didn’t, and the reason was quality. I agree that the mobile phone will probably displace the lower end cameras, but the biggest problem phone cameras have right now is poor quality. There are quite a few phones now that have integrated cameras with impressive resolutions, but I’ve yet to see one that could provide enough light from its flash to take decent photos inside after dark. I think the tipping point may have to wait a little, like everything else, for the batteries to get much better so we can get some real xenon strobes on the phones.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe consumers don’t care. There sure are a lot of really grainy pictures on facebook taken with camera phones, but I’m guessing down the road our generation is going to feel the same regret my grandparents had about the Polaroids.

By: Kevin Pedraja

Kevin Pedraja — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:53:59 +0000

Name suggestion: if the iPhone was the Jesus Phone, then this new all in one device should be the GodPod.

By: Dan Shapiro

Dan Shapiro — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 04:19:43 +0000

Brilliant additions! The HD video camera example particularly strikes home – I tried Samsung’s OmniaHD which records (and displays) 720p video. If I’d known that was coming, I wouldn’t have got an HD video camera.

By: Wade Roush

Wade Roush — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:51:45 +0000

Insightful piece! A few additions to the list of victims:

Dead and buried: The PDA. When was the last time you saw someone using an organizer that wasn’t also a phone?

Endangered: Handheld GPS units. These days, smartphones with GPS chips and large color screens can do everything dedicated GPS units can do. Garmin, Magellan, and Tom Tom will be relegated to selling dash-mounted GPS units for cars—and mobiles could take over that area too, if verbal turn-by-turn instructions come to the iPhone and other platforms, as promised.

Endangered: Dedicated video players like the Creative Zen line. But they were never a popular category anyway.

Soon to lose their niche: Pocket-sized HD video cameras like the Flip. As soon as CCDs and memory get a bit cheaper, manufacturers will cram the same stuff into a smartphone.

Of course, once a “phone” starts to do all of the things we’re talking about here, it’s legitimate to ask whether it should even be called a phone. It’s more like a multiband wireless media capture, storage, and display device. We need a new name for these powerful little gadgets. I vote for “tricorder.”

By: Bill Harding

Bill Harding — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:30:27 +0000

No kidding about the death of the point and shoot! We just got a pricey new one a few months ago. I have yet to turn it on. Over the same time period, I’ve shot more than 100 pictures with my camera phone. This is especially damning when one considers that my camera phone has about 1/10th the acuity of the point and click, and of course, no flash.

Another casualty of my phone that isn’t mentioned here: GPS systems. I just got a new one of those about a year ago, and already donated it to my girlfriend. Takes too long to setup, when I can flip open my phone and get all the location/directions I need within seconds.