The Artefact Group has come-up with this concept (WVIL) camera that has a touch interface like the iPhone (s aapl), wireless capabilities and changeable SLR optics. It is a sign of how the iPhone user interface is becoming the preferred way of interacting with digital devices. And while this is the right way of thinking about the camera of the future, it is unlikely that this kind of camera will succeed. Instead what is going to happen is that with powerful new processors and graphics, we are going to see the acceleration of the software-enabled camera revolution, which will give us access to many of the SLR capabilities.
Concept Camera: The WVIL from Artefact on Vimeo. via Swipelife.
another example of om malik hyping iphone…
Have you seen the sales of iPhone? It doesn’t need me hyping it.
I’m sure a large degree of that success is due to you hyping it. 😉
To be fair you can do it even if it doesn’t need you to. True that touch screen are very popular, true that iPhone is the single most popular touch device.
Conclusion: iPhone changed EVERYTHING. Meh, and trollbait.
iphone is better not cause it has better specs…it does not..the iPhone is better cause it has a great customer experience…My mom got one in july and loves it…she is 71. when ever she had an issue she went to the store or was helped over the phone within minutes…i have to say that apple has the best customer experience of any company.
I need my viewfinder
Lol 🙂
I have no doubt that cameras built into phones, such as what we see with the iPhone 4 and 4S, are eviscerating the low end point and shoot market (the camera you have with you is better than the technically superior camera you left at home), but there are some things, i.e., interchangeable lenses, matteboxes, optical filters, other accessories and kit, that I don’t see phones replacing. I will certainly agree that such equipment is the province of the pro, the serious hobbyist, and the student of photography.
hmm, do you have the habit of reading real news:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-28/samsung-beats-apple-as-no-1-smartphone-vendor.html
iPhone has NOTHING to do with it. Touchscreens and tablets existed long before the iPhone.
Bill
What was the adoption rate of touch screens and touch gestures before the arrival of the iPhone?
Thanks.
Well in all fairness the tech did exist long before the iPhone, so it stands to reason that the camera maker got it’s inspiration from elsewhere. Just because something has a touch screen interface that doesn’t automatically mean it’s borrowing from the iPhone.
It really does look like you are trying very hard to stretch things to fit your pro-apple view of the world instead of viewing tech at the larger scale.
Here’s a clue. Less than 0.1% of the word’s population is affected by apple devices–yep, very few people use or have used an apple device when we look at the entire planet.
Maybe. . . just maybe, humans have a tendency towards developing similar things at similar times. Like HP already having a tablet, much like the iPad, several years before the ipad but not putting it into production because it was cost prohibitive.
Not to mention that capacitive touch screens were, and still are relatively, very expensive and were not invented by apple neither was multi-touch. . .hell, don’t think apple has invented anything other than designs.
Yeah, I know. . . you need to pump apple up because they pay you and you want to get their preview devices, etc. . . oh, the “new journalism of the web.”
I had a treo, qPad, sony clie.. all SUCKED!!! when the iPhone came it was great as there was something that was easy to use and didn’t break my head reading the damn manual…if you have a devices that a child can use as well as any adult, then you have something that is far superior than any product…
maybe you could build a camera that the iphone could fit into. it would store the photos on the iphone, and utilize all the iphone’s cool features like gps & wireless instead of building it themselves
That’s what I thought the picture was at first glance!
Excellent thought.
exactly what I thought..I thought it was using the iPhone hardware with addons for the lense and zoom
a lens case….and app….then is magical…DSLR?
Uh, excuse me. Exactly what does the Iphone have to do with this?
Everything! OMG. The iPhone changes the world! It cures malaria! And cancer!
Wait, what?
UI
Really? Perhaps you should go back and look the smart phone interfaces prior to the iPhone and then look at the UI of smart phones after the iPhone.
But you are more likely to see android on a phone UI since it is free to customize and deploy on whatever hardware you want.
Isn’t it amazing that all these companies like Nikon, Sony, Kodak, Canon, Pentax, Olympus failed to see this coming? Their trajectory was “introduce a higher megapixel point-and-shoot” camera every other year with incremental gimmicks. They had a full decade. Can anyone name a distinctive feature in consumer level digital cameras from the past decade? The only thing that comes to mind is Kodak V570 – that goofy dual-lens camera which was a market flop – http://bit.ly/vdyJTH
Post-iPhone, in hindsight, it’s quite shocking to look back and realize how little innovation was happening in consumer digicam space. Sometimes I pass these giant racks of point-and-shoots at Frys and they look like typewriters to me. Inability to edit the photos on the device, share them, lack of touch-focus, and lack of app stores outweigh any strengths they might have as far as optical zoom or sensor size are concerned.
While I doubt that we’re heading in a direction of putting giant glass optics on mirrorless cameras, I think this practice of editing images on the device itself with instant corrections and effects are here to stay. Adobe should be somewhat worried by this trend.
And still, Nokia makes the best Camera-Phones.
Post- and after iPhone.
Today, my iPhone died after about 8 hours—not even enough to get me through a full day without recharging (and this is typical).
If it’s an iPhone 3G yes perhaps, the iPhone 4 can easily last a day.
Still Nokia makes the best Camera-Phones.
Post- and after iPhone.
Geez….SPAM/double post much?
Yea, sorry for the doublepost, a delete function would be nice.
Anyone here tried this kind of system ? NO. Why ? Use it, then let us know what you think.
Are you ready to have to set-up a camera with 2 or 3 different pieces in your pocket ? Hummm, not sure… People want the “one-piece” concept, not a puzzle…
excellent ideas for the modern world of technology…hope they cn create a mobile which cn play as fridge too.. ;~) kidding!
The hyperbole is sickening. Is the Iphone bringing down oil costs? Getting banks to sort out their capital requirements etc? Finding a cure for cancer.
Sales of the Iphone only prove what a brain washhed generation we have. The fact Kim Kardashian can become rich and famous by lacking any real talent in this celebrity obsessed world we live in fits in well with the rise of the Iphone.
Please. No one is saying that. But if you do not think the iPhone introduced a new UI for phones you have not been following mobile technology over the last 10 years or you are being obtuse.
the iphone did NOT introduce a NEW UI for smartphones! it’s an icon based GUI just like all the other before it. That’s the joke!
The only thing the iphone added was a capacitive touch screen that enabled multi-touch–and others were working on the same thing and apple did NOT invent multi-touch or the capacitive touch screen.
THE IPHONE UI IS THE SAME GUI APPLE RIPPED OFF FROM XEROX ALL THOSE YEARS AGO. THEY ONLY ADDED “MULTI-TOUCH.” THEY INVENTED NOTHING NEW!
Man, I really wonder if any of you ifans even looked at smartphones or other PALM type devices before the iphone–it isn’t that unique other than “multi-touch!”
Not sure I understand what’s going on here. The photographer took OFF the lens to take a photo? I’m pretty sure that’s backwards.
Cool invention
Timer not necessarily needed
How much does it cost?
Very cool concept. Took me a second to realise she was taking a picture of herself using the lens she removed.
What a lot of ridiculous comments. Especially the hard working troll known as “rdx2.” This is *completely* about the iPhone influence as Om rightly points out. All that stuff she does on the screen with the filters and the adjustments did not exist before iPhone and is extremely “iPhone-esque.” If you don’t see that then you are wilfully blind.
To all the luddites and old people talking about how the SLR will never die etc., you are right, but you are wrong about how few of them will be around in the very near future.
It stands to reason that if the current iPhone can already do as good or better than the average point and shoot (and I would argue that last year’s iPhone met this bar), then it’s really quite likely that future cell phone cameras will be able to best at least the low end SLR’s as well.
There are many new technologies coming online in the next few years that could potentially make a camera as small as the iPhone camera record pictures and video as well as an SLR. If even one of these actually works or catches on, SLR’s will be a thing of the past.
Yep just goes to show the dumbing dow.. er, Iphoning down of America is in full effect.After all we all know that frozen pizza is good enough. And those all in one home theatre in a box systems revolutionized home theatre. Lets home the camera makers don’t go the way of good enough.
I want one now
Bad ass.
Not a lot of commentors with much even casual knowledge of photography.
Let’s talk when smartphones actually reach the quality of the typical current crop of point-and-shoots. The 4S is not there.
The Nokia N86 and specially the N8 and N9 are there.
i dunno, i’m pretty sure i’d be interested in buying that camera
Looks kinda like the new Sony camera.
ditto
Om starting to sound like MG Siegler. Good to see Apple fanboyism is alive and thriving. *Sigh*
it looks a lot like Sony’s NEX series that has been out for 2 years or so
http://photorumors.com/2010/05/10/here-is-the-sony-nex-3/
or
http://photorumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/500_Sony_NEX-3_a4.jpeg
I think Apple can take legal action.
This is not at all the right way to think about serious camera controls.
A photographer needs to be able to change functions easily while the camera is being held in a stable shooting position – not fiddling with a touchscreen to focus etc.
It’s a bad enough idea on consumer cameras.
It simply won’t fly on prosumer/pro units.
Also – an actual eyepiece is needed because stability is again massivly important. Using a screen forces you to hold the entire camera out away from you. This is an inherently less stable position.
Finally – software can’t do everything.
Unless some new physical lens system brings light and clarity to the sensor in an impressive manner then it is a fail.
I’d like to see them use that interface as a iPhone or Android Camera App. At least that’s something that is possible now for cheap. A stand alone device like that is going to cost more then a iPhone off contract…
Malik, I appreciate your opinions unlike the take by some that you are “hyping the iPhone”. I’m afraid that some of these comments are harshly-opinionated folks who haven’t had a chance to appreciate the features, benefits, and true innovations of it. Even the 3GS is still selling well. Even though many of us read and appreciate your shared thoughts I really doubt many have bought an iPhone purely on your input. Maybe these people bought their android phone based on someone’s opinion and now are bitter about the amount of time that is spent trying to find a version of the OS that works.
I like the concept
While I certainly agree that cameras can get better and easier with these interfaces, I don’t think any average human cares about having SLR capabilities unless somehow they make it easy for us to get how to use them.
@AppleFUD – It’s like saying the playstation is better than the xbox because xbox took what the playstation did in the 90’s and made it better. so therefore the xbox, and microsoft, ripped off sony because they took existing technologies and a rough idea and made it 10 times better.
that’s your logic.