Digital Home Thoughts: The Obsolescence of Compact Digital Cameras; Time for a New Paradigm?

"Along with daytime soap operas, print magazines, and Compact Discs, digital point-and-shoot cameras—digicams—appear to have passed their peak. According to a recent article by Sam Grobart, unit sales of digicams are down 16% since 2008."

Above: That's the Chobi Digital Camera.

Mike Johnston from The Online Photographer takes a look at the New York Times article on slide in compact digital camera sales and use due to the rise in smartphones with increasing megapixel count. Personally I don't use them, since the camera is really crap most of the time (with the only good camera phone I've had was the Nokia E72, which I didn't own for long), but I can see the draw of instant sharing and apps to change how photos are taken.

Having used Android for quite a bit, and seen the apps in both Android and iOS, I think it is time for the camera industry to look at new ways of sharing and using photos. The current kludges (Eye-fi cards) and cameras (built-in Wifi for select models, or expensive Wifi addons for DSLRs) are limiting, inflexible, and you are at the mercy of the camera maker or kludge maker to support the apps, if any, or photo sharing sites you want. A proper extensible OS with the right connectivity options, like Bluetooth or 3G, removes all of those limitations. Being able to share photos quickly is one thing, but also imagine the other possibilities like added features (think CHDK for every camera), custom in-camera filters or effects (less time in Photoshop = more time doing other things), or something greater that I have not thought about.

With 3G networks becoming more prevalent, and 4G networks looming on the horizon, I believe the time is now, but the traditional camera makers are staying, well, very traditional. Canon seem to have no such plans, and are currently content in increasing ISO and megapixel count, while Nikon's consumer solution in My Picturetown is pretty much a testament to their Not Invented Here mindset (Capture NX2 comes to mind as well; that should have been released as an open Photoshop plugin). Panasonic released a Lumix phone recently, but that is more phone than camera. In the meantime I will just be a bit of a dinosaur in these modern times and rely on needing a full-blown personal computer before I can share my images online.