cameraphone

With the iPhone4S, Apple is now the leader in cameraphones. The only advantage left to Nokia is the Zeiss lens. They have fallen behind in everything else! Sad but true! I hope Damian Dinning and his fab team at Nokia have an even better Nokia cameraphone waiting to be introduced before the end of the year. Fingers crossed!

The iPhone4S has a camera processing chip, the so-called image signal processor aka "ISP" and it has over 6000 cameraphone apps and a f2.4 lens and HD video. The N8 and the N9 lose in all areas except when it comes to raw megapixel count (the N8 has 12 megapixels) and perhaps in the lens quality: the N9 has 8MP and f2.2; the N8 has 82MP and f2.8; both are Zeiss optics which are better lens (methinks) than the iPhone4S 5 element "no-name" design.

Time will tell if Nokia can regain its cameraphone crown but back in 2007 (the time of the "laughable" iPhone 2G; I didn't laugh; I had an iPhone 2G as well as my Nokia N95 and N82 which combined I used to take tens of thousands of photos and I loved the original iPhone web browser and knew back then the iPhone wouidn't be a toy cameraphone in 2011) nobody in the land of Nokia watchers and enthusiasts would have thought that that Apple would produce the iPhone4S that overall beats Nokia cameraphones and not only that will ship in volumes that dwarf the N95 and N82 sales: Every single deficiency that the original iPhone had compared to Nokia cameraphones in 2007 has been corrected and surpassed by the iPhone4S in 2011

Is there a N8 equivalent of the iPhone Slow Shutter app that will allow me to take 0.5 to 15 second photos?

So perhaps the iOS 5 hardware button option will make the iPhone a truly usable cameraphone; the missing hardware button is the only thing keeping the iPhone from being a "real" cameraphone (6000 cameraphone apps CHECK! acceptable 5 megapixel sensor CHECK!). As the germans say, mal sehen!

At Nokia Unfenced II in Canmore, Alberta, Canada at the beginning of July (a fun event consisting of horseback riding, a challenging ropes course and other mayhem and hijinx which was impeccably and beautifully organized by Donna Suffling and Tom Hall of Womworld Nokia; my thanks to Donna, Tom and Womworld for paying for the whole shebang and providing us review Nokia X7s!), I received the Nokia X7 for review. I tried to love the X7 but after the N8 I think it's really impossible for me to love another cameraphone fully unless it beats the N8's picture quality. It's all about the pictures for me and the N8's pictures are the best in spite of Symbian's many unfriendly eccentricities (check out the my X7 pictures for yourself: X7 Set 1, X7 Set 2).

Loved:

• X7 build quality
• Symbian Anna is getting easier to use (the eccentricities are very nearly all gone) but is it too little too late? Probably in my estimation but time will tell;

Not loved:

• No lanyard slot (but I realize that most people don't carry their cameraphones around their neck for quick camera access)
• Probably no lanyard slot because it's too heavy for wearing around your neck :-)
• The EDoF EOF i.e. fixed focus  camera. Sorry but when you can get an iPhone 3GS with macro and real focusing for  free on contract, why would you settle for a fixed focus camera ?
• Disappointed to find that the Symbian Anna Browser doesn't run my HTML5 map mashups made using the CloudMade API e.g. my map of Vancouver flickr photos taken the day the Vancouver Canucks beat the San Jose Sharks to advance to the 2011 Stanley Cup final (but Android Web Kit browser, Firefox Mobile and Mobile Safari do and my guess is Opera Mobile on the X7 would work). When will Symbian get a real HTML5 modern built-in browser? Symbian Belle?

As promised, videos of my San Francisco and Vancouver real-time HTML5 geotagged photo mashups driven by the great flickr and CloudMadeAPIs (each time a geotagged photo to the city is uploaded to flickr, a dot is posted on the map; the dot does a reverse blue fade-in and then alternates between green and red and the map alternates between orange and pink). Next up, add music driven by the neighbourhood (i.e. a different tune for each woeid, which means 26 different tunes for Vancouver).

Vancouver real-time flickr cloudmade html5 mashup:

Code:

github.com/rtanglao/rth5/blob/master/vancouver-emerges...

Try it out yourself! (may take some time for photos to appear since dots are only added when photos are uploaded to flickr geotagged in the city of vancouver):

dl.dropbox.com/u/361757/CCC/vancouver-emerges-d3.html

San Francisco real-time flickr cloudmade html5 mashup:

Code:

github.com/rtanglao/rth5/blob/master/sanfrancisco-emerges...

Try it out yourself (may take some time for photos to appear since dots are only added when photos are uploaded to flickr geotagged in the city of san francisco):

dl.dropbox.com/u/361757/CCC/sanfrancisco-emerges-d3.html

To the three :-) people in the world who care about blinking lights on a CloudMade Map : Evidently CloudMade and the web browsers can't handle  large amount of overlays i.e. 1000s of them :-). So the solution is to map.removeOverlay() before map.addOverlay(). If you don't remove the overlay before you addOverlay() then the browser slows down and leaks a large amount of memory.

I'll post a video later of the incredible Das Blinkenlights :-) but you can try it yourself. Just click on one of the following URLs to try it yourself (the map will be all black until somebody uploads some geotagged photos which could be anywhere from 1 second from now until an hour from now):

• Vancouver Das Blinkenlights (source code on github:vancouver-emerges-d.html)
• San Francisco Das Blinkenlights (source code on github:sanfrancisco-emerges-d.html)

I have Nokia Cameraphone Stockholm syndrome :-) which means I neglect the (un)usability of Symbian in order to get fantastic photos like the ones above! I can't stop taking photos with the Nokia N8, and I can't repeat it enough, the photo quality is amazing, thanks again to the Nokia team responsible for the N8!

My question, who will top the Nokia N8 in cameraphones? Will it be somebody on Android, Windows Phone 7, WebOS, or will Canon and Nikon or some camera upstart like Panasonic do the right thing and incorporate 3G connectivity with software programmability (I love Eye-Fi but unless it's built in it's a kludge! And the built-in WiFi in various Nikons and other cameras from traditional camera manufacturers is unusable since it's not programmable and not flexible) so that an ecosystem of cameraphone apps can spawn around a fantastic cameraphone (the iPhone4 has an excellent ecosystem of cameraphone apps but without a dedicated camera button, I can't use it as my goto cameraphone).

My guess it will be be an Android cameraphone with a dedicated camera button that will top the N8 but I'd love to be proven wrong by HP, or Panasonic or other upstart. (And feel free to think that my obsession with cameras with built in connectivity that is programmable is crazy but I think there are many 1000s of people like me!)

Cisco Flip débacle lessons:

• Social Cameras must have wireless connectivity (I like Dave Winer's crazy good Social Camera idea but there's lots of room for innovation here that Cisco, Nokia and many others have missed and that companies like Color, Eye-fi et al are trying)  &
• Magic fairy dust won't turn Enterprise companies like Cisco (or the late lamented mismanaged Nortel) into consumer companies :-)

tl;dr: Surprised by the paucity of real-time geotagged photos on flickr. People seem to upload in batches many hours after the fact. Still looking for a cool real-time geotagged picture feed so I can do some Blinkenlights info visualizations in a web browser near you!

Real Time Average Colour of Geotagged photos of 18 cities after a few minutes

Real Time Average Colour Geotagged photos of 18 cities after a few hours

Since 2007, I have over 50000 21000 (29000 non geotagged) geotagged photos uploaded on flickr from cameras most in real-time or near real time (a few minutes to a few hours after they were taken). I expected in 2010 that there would be many real-time geo tagged obsessive :-) photo uploaders like me. Enough to power a cool Blinkenlights info visualization.

Well I was wrong :-) Based on the info viz (geoTaggedAvg18.html ; github source - tested Firefox 4, Chrome, iPhone 4, Android 2.1 - each dot is the average colour of a geotagged photo uploaded to 1 of 18 cities, there are 24 dots per row and then it wraps around after over 24) that I did in Javascript and HTML5 even in geo-tagging mad cities like New York and San Francisco and Vancouver, people don't upload geotagged photos in real-time to flickr (and I doubt elsewhere but love to be proven wrong, if anybody has a real-time updated photo stream with lat/long and an API that has more photos than flickr, please let me know:roland AT rolandtanglao.com twitter:@rtanglao). They do it after the fact and they don't do many.

Probably because:

• people are concerned about loss of privacy
• uploading with GPS coordinates is too hard
• GPSes are unreliable but getting more reliable every day
• most people upload to social media ghettos like Facebook and Twitpic where most of their metadata including latitude and longitude is lost and/or not available via API instead of "full photos as social object with full-meta-data-preservation-and-APIs-to-get-the-meta-data" services like flickr

Each red, yellow or orange dot represents 1 geotagged cameraphone photo from folks on Flickr taken between 00:00 Feb 28 2010 PST to 11:59PM Feb 28 2010 PST. Over 2000 photos! generated by: dl.dropbox.com/u/361757/CCC/mens-gold-medal-hockey-game28... 

(Works on Firefox 4, Safari 5, Chrome, Safari iOS 4 but not Firefox 3., github source)

Observations:

1. Granville and Robson truly were the epicentre of action that day!
2. No photos uploaded from Granville Island
3. No photos uploaded from The Drive - East Van was almost totally unaffected by the Olympics which corresponds with my experience. East of Gastown there was no Olympic visitors and not nearly as much buzz.

I have switched over to the N900 for the moment for my cameraphone pictures. All in all the N900 seems better than the N82. Some comments and nits:

1. Would be nice to be able to switch off the touch screen because sometimes in the middle of bicycling I realize the GPS has turned off or the setting is wrong for some reason:
2. Does this happen because of a glitch / bug or because of an inadvertent touch while bicycling? I think both!
3. The N900 camera is not much faster than the N82 (in fact the N82 might be faster). Anybody done any timing?
4. The N900 lens is clean. After 3 years, the N82 has dust under the cover
5. In silent mode, the N900 camera app doesn't make a noise. This is different from the N82 and N95 which didn't allow me to turn the camera sound off even in silent mode
6. The N900 built-in GPS is faster than  the N82 + Bluetooth GPS that I was using before

Tnkgrl brought up a good point today at lunch at Nuba. Why do I continue to use the N82 when the N900 is better (e.g. faster shot to shot, great macro, etc.) ?

The primary reason is ShoZu! There is no solution as far as I know on the N900 that will upload dozens of photos at once to flickr. If anybody knows of such a program for the N900, please let me know and I'll switch (I can't handle doing 12 at a time, it's a waste of time when you have taken 20-50 as I usually do!).

The pre iPhone 4 camera is not as great as the Nokia cameraphones have been (the iPhone 4 finally has a decent camera that actually is better than most Nokia cameraphones) but because it is easy to use and to develop for there are many apps that make it fun e.g. hipstamatic. I am glad that the N900 finally has some decent apps like FCamera, low-light assistant and hdr capture that are powered by the research project FCam. Can't wait to try these. Expect lots of fun and weird pictures from these apps in my flickr stream soon.

Inspired by Jen's 2,045 Days with a Camera Phone:

1. I have over 35000 (35823 as of this writing) public photos tagged "cameraphone" on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roland/tags/cameraphone since I bought my Nokia 7610 1 megapixel cameraphone back in June 2004
2. Over 90% of those were with Nokia Cameraphones
3. most of them were with the N95 (7643) and N82 (20, 554 as of this writing)
4. Combine the 35000 public plus over 10000 on my private kid flickr account plus the ones that I didn't download and I have over 50000
5. Needless to say I love my N82 :-) and its "triumph of the lofi" sensor
6. I also love the non blurriness of my digital SLR and Lightroom but hate the fact that WiFi and GPS are not built into DSLRs (they both should be! All cameras including cameraphones and SLRs and point and shoots will be social cameras in 10 years or less!!!!)
7. And like Jen I have tried the N8 under NDA and it's fantastic
8. Therefore even though (like Jen), Symbian is not my fav operating system anymore:
9. N8 + ShoZu + gravity = a winner so I am getting one (and an iPhone 4 as previously blogged; it would be silly for me not to use the awesome cameraphone power of the iPhone 4)
10. And Jen, I assume when you write:
    1. " I will be purchasing a Nokia N8 and then tracking down a QT developer to help me flesh out the code of my mobile app idea. Here's to 2,045 more days of camera phone photography. ;o)"
    2. that python is ok? Right Jen :-) ? If so I'll help you write a prototype. I don't do C++ :-)

Dave Winer has been writing for many years about a social camera. I have been writing for years about how ShoZu + Nokia Cameraphones are killer apps and built-in ShoZu would be a killer app (e.g. Nokia should buy ShoZu).

My current thinking is:

Canon or Nikon's sensors and lens +  Nokia phone with "comes with world wide connectivity and built-in easy to use app for uploading photos and HD video to all popular social sites e.g. flickr, facebook, picasa" + sideload to your Computer and OVI files (i.e. Eye-fi done right, not as an aftermarket kludge - don't get me wrong, unlike Dave I love my Eye-Fi card; it's done well but at the end of the day it's a hack!) for backup in real time using ShoZu-like technology to do it in the background and auto-resume if connectivity lost  =

an awesome social camera that would sell well

The current Nokia solution is Share Online which is:

• a) hard to use 
• b) hard to configure 
• c) doesn't work in the  background and auto-resume like ShoZu  
• d) requires folks to figure out the whole "3G/WiFi don't automatically switch to 3G when I am roaming" dance

As Dave points out if Nokia doesn't do it (and Nokia is the only company with all the pieces including camera hardware and software, ShoZu-like tech, etc) and the biz dev clout to do something like a "Comes with bandwidth" partnership like Amazon did for the Kindle), somebody else will do it e.g. Apple or Google or some social camera upstart.

James Burland's (a video and still cameraphone expert since the N90 and N93 days))  stunning video of a bee pollinating flowers shows the high quality sound and video of the iPhone 4 camera.

Total killer app for parents and aspiring film makers !! Who needs a Canon 5D Mark II? You could easily do something like the Blair Witch Project with shaky non stabilized video on the iPhone 4.

Don't believe me? Register for vimeo, download James Burland's iphone 4 HD video, put on your headphones and check it out.

Because I have tried an N8 prototype, I know the Nokia N8's stills are better than the iPhone 4 stills but not sure the N8's videos are going to be better than iPhone 4. Bring on the competition!

If you examine the iPhone 4 photos and videos floating around the Internet you will see that the photos and videos are fantastic. Not as fantastic as the upcoming Nokia N8 but for 99% of the folks it's more than good enough. And that includes the "I have taken 40000 cameraphone pictures since 2004" cameraphone geeks like myself.

Even the mighty, not released until the fall, Nokia N8 doesn't have the fun and funky cameraphone applications that the iPhone has. One could argue as I have in the past that these are gimmicks to make up for the lousy camera which was true.  But with the iPhone 4, the camera is excellent: fast, plenty of pixels and excellent quality and the HD video on the iPhone 4 is unequalled by the N8.

So has Nokia lost the plot? I would certainly say so. Definitely lost the geeks and other "small c" and hobbyist creators to Android; the high profit, high margin trendy middle class and rich folks to the iPhone; the only thing remaining is low margin high volume phones and lingering vestiges of brand coolness in Asia and Europe.

Is Nokia doomed to "IBM-like 1980s irrelevance" where Apple and Android are like Microsoft in the 1980s - popularizing  and growing the market and pushing Nokia like Microsoft pushed IBM to the margins?

Certainly seems that way. I still think all is not lost. If the N8 ships on time and Symbian^3 is actually much more usable than I think it is and more importantly, the N8, post N900 device and Symbian are marketed properly worldwide and if the Meego post N900 device is cool and compelling, there's definitely the possibility of a rebound.

My fingers are crossed for the big N. I'll continue to enjoy my N900's unabashed and unequalled openess and hackability (disclosure:I received my N900 free from Nokia at the recent Nokia adventure but was going to buy anyway) and I am pretty sure I will buy an N8.

And to participate in the fun and use its great camera and software, I'll also get an iPhone 4.

The N900 is the closest thing to my N999 vision that Nokia has announced. More like this please. Still prefer a separate company/stealth division. Still really want a device that caters to  mobile, social multi media creators like  myself. Still want an optical zoom. Still don't need a QWERTY keyboard. Congrats, Nokia, anyway on thinking a wee bit different for a change. And good-bye to S60/S^2/whatever crazy re-branding Nokia wants to give you.. You'll always be my first mobile crush but yes I have jilted you and it will never be the same between us :-)

Or at least it appears to. The N97 proof is in the pudding which is the user experience including hardware and software (skeptical about S60 but willing to be convinced), but at first glance appears to be great. Hope it's both North American and European 3G and available in Canada officially soon! I trust it has lots of RAM and will run ShoZu, Qik and viNes in short order! Vive la competitiion! Go Nokia go!

QUOTE [From Nokia N97 - The Nseries Dream Device: Nokia S60 News and Reviews]

So what makes this Nokia's Dream Device? The N97 is the first Nseries device with QWERTY keyboard!!!!! Now thats not the only thing that makes this a dream device... and let me just state that the endearing term "dream device" is solely based on my own initial impression and opinion of the device.

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QUOTE [From Meet the Nokia N97 - The New Nseries Flagship!]

On first glance the N97 compares to the 5800 in size and seems like it’s older brother … until you slide the keyboard out and realize you’ve got an altogether new breed in hand. While it’s not a small device, the N97 feels great in your hand and can easily be used while walking without needing two hands in most cases. The virtual keyboards (numbers and T9) were clear and the softkeys seemed eas to access for quick data entry. Of course for larger text needs a quick flip and you’ve got a real keyboard at your disposal. Weight (Approx. 150 g) felt semi-comparable to the E71 and in the front pocket of my jeans it was not in any way uncomfortable.

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QUOTE [From Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive Nokia N97: the ultimate Facebook device «]

Nokia just announced the N97. I got a chance to play with it last night and realized they have built the ultimate Facebook device. Now, I’m sure, lots of you will wonder how it compares to the iPhone. Well, for a Facebook user it isn’t even close: the new Nokia device wins hands down. Why? Let’s compare:

1. It does 16:9 video. The iPhone doesn’t even do video. So, how can you go to a Daft Punk concert and record it to taunt your friends?
2. It has a 5 megapixel camera. The iPhone only has 2, and the quality isn’t even close. The camera also has a dual LED flash, so you can take pictures in the dark where the iPhone can’t.
3. I can type three Facebook status messages on the N97’s nice QWERTY keybord in the time that I can type two on the iPhone.
4. It does copy and paste, so you can copy URLs to send to your friends. The iPhone can’t do that.
5. It has replaceable batteries so you can charge up three batteries and Facebook for days, while the iPhone needs to be hooked back up to the wall for recharging after a few hours.
6. The GPS device does turn-by-turn and has a built in compass, so you’ll get to your parties faster than with the iPhone, which doesn’t have a compass and doesn’t do turn-by-turn.

OK, so how else does it compare to the iPhone? It has a touch screen, with a cool customizeable home screen. You can add a Facebook component and can drag and drop different components with your finger. You can also use gestures so you can “flick” through your photos. That part is very similar to the iPhone, so you can see that Steve Jobs had a big influence on the user experience.

The device itself has only one button and you can see Jonathan Ives’ challenge taken up all over the device. Close your eyes and touch the device and you don’t feel buttons or other things protuding. Smooth.

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Ha ha, thanks Ewan. I guess after posting 21000 photos with ShoZu I am a ShoZu Grand Master. Glad to help! Vanouverites with Nokia cameraphones please text me at 604 729 7924 or twitter @rtanglao or leave a comment. I am really looking forward to helping others use ShoZu.

QUOTE [From Our first ShoZu Grand Master reveals himself in Vancouver | Mobile Industry Review]

Yes, Roland Tanglao has grabbed hold of the MIR ShoZu Campaign Mantle and thrust a stake in the ground right in the centre of Vancouver.

To paraphrase the A-Team introduction: “If nobody else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire Roland Tanglao.”

That’s right, Roland is offering to help anyone understand, install and setup ShoZu — although he rightly points out that if you’re using an iPhone, you probably don’t need any help as it’s so easy.

But if you’re in need, buy Roland a $2.25 macchiato and the knowledge is yours. What a deal. Even if you’re already a dab hand at ShoZu, you might want to hook up with Roland anyway and say hi.

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