On the Subject of the Grand Unification of Cell Phone Camera Theory...

<a

href="http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/monty/archive/images/monty2006109570411

.gif">"Monty" by Jim Meddick Comic Strip</a>

 

<p>Seems like the logical progression...</p>

Wasn't Einstein working on that? ;-)

closely related to the law of decreasing quality (a special case of the law of increase of entropy that states that the quality of products will always decrease as their intended target audience gets less and less knowledgeble).

I'm still waiting for a "Caller IQ" display feature.

Wigwam,

 

Thanks for posting; I like it. Too true, though.

 

Any and all products start off being quirky and weird, snapped up by early adopters who don't mind the quirks in exchange for the benefits. Think of the first cars, the first computers, the first cellphones, the first cameras.

 

The early adopters use them, the feedback is used to make successive generations easier and simpler to use. With cars, that step took decades - loose the hand starter and hand choke and finnicky carbs, replaced with electric starters and fuel injection. Cameras, similar thing - film in a cassette replaced glass plates and homemade emulsions, electronic metering and autofocus and auto-advance got rid of exposure errors and double exposures.

 

As the goods get easier to use and more common, price drops, and those items become just a commodity. Is it a big difference whether you get a red Toyota or a red Honda? A 10 MP DSLR from Nikon vs. Canon? Nope, so price becomes how the makers compete.

 

But there's a third step: dumbing down for the masses, goods made so simple a 3 y/o can use them. Cameras are mostly there now - many people have given simple cameras to a young child and had them take decent photos from waist-level or less.

 

And cellphones have taken the "give it every feature and make it child-easy" to extremes. I also doubt the process is anywhere near finished. I'd guess that if you follow a logical progression, a bunch of small electronic devices will be merged into future "cellphones": PDA, Ipod, camera, phone, and maybe a video player of some sort. Cellphone will become something of an electronic Leatherman tool.

 

At least that's my best guess.

Doug,

 

I know what you mean, and I know the theory of the early adopter, champion, and so on. I work in IT, I'm a high-tech kinda guy (except for tube audio, I guess, I like my audio tech from 1950).

 

I have a foot in both worlds, which makes sense for a Generation Jones kinda guy (yeah, that's right, they named it after me for the out-of-touch folks who fall between Boomers and X'ers).

 

I like cameras made of brass and steel and glass, but I also carry a digicam with me everywhere as my electronic Olympus XA kinda thing. I shoot film and digital SLRs, whichever I think it appropriate, or whichever I prefer at any given moment.

 

I was an early adopter of PDAs, carried one everywhere, used it in cutting-edge ways. When I traveled for a living, I used the NeverLost GPS system from Hertz for years before it caught on in consumer vehicles. I started my own BBS in 1985, wrote my own dual-phone line BBS software on System 7 Unix. I got my first internet email address in 1986, posted on Usenet for the first time in 1991.

 

All this to say I like tech as well as older traditions.

 

But I hate cell phones.

 

I carry one because my employer provides it and pays for it. If not for that, I'd have a deactivated one in glove box of my car for emergencies (did you know that in the US, even deactivated phones with no dial tone MUST be able to dial 911 by law). Ring tones? Are you kidding? If the bloody thing has to ring, make it a ring like a phone makes. Screen savers? Backgrounds? Oh puhleeze.

 

I have no other use for a cell phone. I think they are the height of rudeness, they exemplify everything that is wrong with our culture, they're a mistake on every level. No one needs to talk to anyone that badly. Maybe doctors, but pagers worked quite well for that.

 

So I have zero interest in a cell-phone-cum-anything, since first and foremost, it involves a bloody cell phone.

 

I've also decided that my PDA is a lot less useful than my Moleskine 'reporter' notebook, so that sits in a drawer now too.

 

I *used* to be an early adopter - now I'm a fan of appropriate tech. My phone in my home in NC has a dial on it. My nieces and nephews have no idea how to work it. Hehehehe.

 

OK, that's the end of my cell phone rant. Sorry.

I've never owned a cell phone. I haven't stayed in one place for more than 8-months since 1989 when a cell phone was as big as a brick (Motorola). I have used satellite phones, though, in deepest, darkest and coldest Russia and China.

The rant didn't offend me in the least; no apology needed. Agreed on adopting tech as needed, and not everybody needs it.

 

I have a cellphone to talk to my g/f (she lives 70 miles away, and it's better than IM), and to call 911 when my ex-wife gets violent. I was a late-adopter of that tech.

 

PDA - they were passed out at work, and my name was on a list of people that got one. I like it, but over time I find I use it less and less. I find I don't like waiting for things to boot. In the time it takes to boot and then push the buttons, I can find the data on a paper calendar. A moleskin isn't my favorite method, waterproof notepads and space pens are. I can take that combo in my whitewater kayak or my motorcycle in the rain, and not worry about batteries or water damage.

 

Cameras - each one I buy is older than the last. Oldest is a 70 y/o 4x5 press camera, but I'm on the hunt now for a 100 y/o Kodak Panoram that I can put some 120 film into and play with. Like you, sometimes I carry a compact digi P&S for photos I know won't be timeless, or that I need to email fast.

 

Long-winded reply made short: I agree on adopting appropriate levels of tech.

 

But younger people call me stodgy. Probably happens to you, too.

 

FWIW, I'm 44. My g/f tells me I'm between a couple of those "named" generations, too.

 

Doug Grosjean

 

PS:

I think the cellphone rudeness depends on the user. If somebody calls me on mine, and I'm in the middle of a good convo, I answer and say "Sorry, I'm talking / visiting with somebody now. I'll call back when I can." I won't drop a good F2F convo in order to have a cellphone convo - the F2F is to be savored and enjoyed.

<em>"... I think the cellphone rudeness depends on the user. If somebody calls me on mine, and I'm in the middle of a good convo..."</em>

<p>... my cellphone will be turned off. I always turn it off when I'm doing something with someone.

Good point, Bob.

 

I leave it on (set to vibrate) just in case there's actually an emergency. I have a child, and a close relative with a terminal disease; and would feel extremely guilty if I was needed and couldn't be reached.

<i>But there's a third step: dumbing down for the masses, goods made so simple a 3 y/o can use them. Cameras are mostly there now -</i><p>

 

Cameras were there years ago. Single use cameras drove film sales, to a great extent. Cellphones already have more capabilities than single use cameras ever had.