Mobile phones have been cannibals in the gadget market place. They have eaten other devices lunches while increasing their marketshare. PDAs, GPS units, book viewers and hand game consoles have all come and now linger on as Zombie low cost or highly specialized devices as smartphones knock each one off.
The real culprit is the huge computing power in smartphone CPU chips which have have easily doubled in capability every two years. And so smartphones have delivered:
GPS routing with spoken commands and directions on ever more realistic maps[Garmin and TomTom linger in specialty markets}
Game and movies up to 1920 x 1200 screens with retina caliber accuracy[Nintendo and Sony small game consoles have become smartphones]
Book reading apps with notes, bookmarks, reference links[Kindle and Kobo have become more smartphone like]
And an app for everything else [good bye Palm PDAs and WebOS].
Smartphones have won the day because of the tidal wave of hundreds of thousands of smartphone apps, the simplicity and lightness of touch screen OS, the ever bigger and better durability+viewability of smartphone screens even in direct sunlight, and the ability to deliver images immediately to where you want – clients, friends, customers, etc.
Could Smartphones now do in Compact Cameras?
Well the most popular camera on Flickr is the iPhone. DPreview now does those thorough reviews for smartphone cameras as well. Still there at least 5 things compact cameras have that smartphones have not yet matched:
1)the size of the camera sensor – but Nokia’s 808 Pureview and expected Windows Phone 8 version could change that;
2)the quality and size of the lens – but Pelican grid array lenses could change that with software;
3)the quality and size of the flash – but its getting close;
4)the range of optical zoom capabilities – smartphones’ electronic zoom still does not match a compact camera ‘s optical zoom;
5)the availability of a tripod mount – but there are plenty of 3rd party grips which link to monopod and full tripods.
So compact cameras still retain some clear competitive advantages over smartphone cameras. But watch out.
This site has argued that Compact Cameras better become more like smartphones or camera makers will see the compact market swallowed up GPS-like by smartphones. The light weight, touch screen easy operations and always with you aspect of the smartphone are already hard to beat. But keep in mind the huge computing power of Smartphone chips and the legion of 3rd party developers working to bring apps down from desktop/laptops or just innovating with touchscreens to bring powerful photo and video editing to smartphones. Think Instagram and formidable competition for compact cameras. To date this party has not been able to find a compact camera with phone that I would be willing to always carry with me. Not a good sign for compact camera makers.