rant: cameras on phones. WTF?!

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
Many high end phones are coming with built-in, dinky little cameras. However, many companies discourage or outright refuse to allow cameras in their facilities. With good reason too. Personally I have no use for these cheesy little cameras and the people I know who use them use them to message their friends pictures of their asses or other mundane things. Hey Sony Ericsson, Nokia, and Handspring: eathday otay ameracay onesphay!



Or in other words: When can I get my camera-less Treo 600?!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    dmband0026dmband0026 Posts: 2,345member
    I'm gonna have to agree that camera phones suck butt. I don't get the point. I don't want to shorten my battery life just by taking crappie pictures. But I guess some people live and die by what kind of cell phone they have and all the worthless crap it can do. That seems to be a popular thing among those teenagers nowadays. Wait...crap, I'm 18. But I have an old ghetto Moto phone that I bought off of eBay for $30, but I never use it...cell phones, don't get the point.
  • Reply 2 of 14
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    But it can take pictures, IT'S SO COOL!



    Yeah I don't see the point either, hell I don't even have one. I'd say buy the nice phone with camera, shatter the lens and prove to them it doesn't work
  • Reply 3 of 14
    **** you guys. Post counts all down by 100!



    I thought it was pointless until I got one. For instance, a client I was about to sue finally sent me a settlement check. In the "memo" field, he got all clever and wrote, "NOTHING!". It was so funny, I had to take a picture of it. I was at the bank about toe deposit it... only had my phone. Boom.



    It's great when I want to assign a face to caller ID. I can snap a photo of the person there and assign it. Also great for when I pop down to the pub and decide to take pics and mail them after I've had a few pints... ok, more than a few.
  • Reply 4 of 14
    You have to admit. It's cool, but useless
  • Reply 5 of 14
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    I use mine for two things:[list=1][*]Taking people's pictures for caller I.D. or their Address Book icon.[*]Having a camera to take a picture during those, "Huh, isn't that kinda weird" moments.[/list=1]

    I think it's despicable that people are upskirting or committing identity theft with them. They're ruining it for everybody else. I personally haven't gone anywhere that have banned them yet, though. I hope it doesn't get to the point of having to be a widespread policy.
  • Reply 6 of 14
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    I know of health clubs in NYC that are banning them in the locker room. Basically that means leave them in your car or at home.
  • Reply 7 of 14
    torifiletorifile Posts: 4,024member
    Camera phones ARE stupid. But I had one good use for one: My fiancee worked in Seattle for a year with Americorps. Her major project was to open a thrift store for mentally ill homeless people to get job experience and raise money. That was 5 years ago. I was in Seattle for some training in December and I thought it would be cool to see if it was still there. I found it and took a picture of it. Instead of calling her, I just emailed her the picture right from the phone. She was really happy. A phone call wouldn't have been the same. Other than that, keep those crappy cameras away from me.
  • Reply 8 of 14
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    I have to agree the integrated cameras are a bit of an issue. Since the start of this year I haven't been able to carry my phone on me at all when at work. I can divert the calls to my desk but still it's a bit of a nuisance and all because virtually every phone I'm interested in had an integrated camera.
  • Reply 9 of 14
    k squaredk squared Posts: 608member
    They need to mature, but they are not stupid. Sony's small u-series of digital cameras started at 1.3 MP and have no zoom. They are now 2.0 MP. These zoomless, low megapixal cameras are perfect for phones.
  • Reply 10 of 14
    johnqjohnq Posts: 2,763member
    What I hate now is the paranoid ostracizing that occurs when one uses their camera-less phone in public. I've tried getting a stock quote or headline and have had people accuse me of taking pictures.



    Now everyone presumes all phones to be camera phones. Sad.
  • Reply 11 of 14
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    can someone explain an issue with regards to this that has always bugged me:



    if i have a right, for whatever reason, to witness something with my own eyes, especially in a public place, how can someone prevent me from taking a picture of that exact same person, place or thing for my own use and review, so long as i never distribute it? i mean, right to privacy makes sense, unless it's a public place, no? of course, these days, it's damn hard to find anyplace that is truly "public" -- usually someone owns it and therefore restricts picture taking or whatever. which still seems assinine to me.



    i only bring this up because an apple store manager read me the riot act about taking pictures in his store, when they even allowed them during the opening and they were plastered all over the 'net.



    edit: p.s. then again, there is the issue of having to inform someone you are tape-recording a conversation for it to be admissible in a court of law, so maybe it falls along those lines?
  • Reply 12 of 14
    homhom Posts: 1,098member
    Camera phones are a bit of a gimmick now, but soon will be a great combination. Right now the best resolution you can get is 640x480, but by the end of the year there will be a half dozen 1.3 MP phones out. By this point next year, I'm sure that it will be up to 2MP+. At these resolutions I don't see a need to buy a separate digital camera personally. I do understand that there are people that are going to want all the controls, higher resolutions, and better lenses that a real camera digital or analogue provides, but I'm not one of them.



    I've only used the camera phone a few times that were useful. I took a picture of myself in a mirror, emailed it from the phone, and got a response on wether it looked good. Stuff like that, but like I said as the resolution gets better I could see myself using it more often.
  • Reply 13 of 14
    mac writemac write Posts: 289member
    I use my phone everywhere (or will be with unlimited calling for $30 US/month) and Don't really want a camera phone, but I still want a 65K color screen and 16MB memory. Why? When I upgrade my new Siemens M55 that replaced my Nokia 6190 of 6 years -4 days I want it to last 4-5 years. I caryy my Nikon CP 995 everywhere so I don't need a camera, the only think it would be used for is Photo Caller ID THAT'S IT NOTHING ELSE. I have a feeling you won't be able to get a WiFi enabled 65K Color phone without a camera within 2 years
  • Reply 14 of 14
    k squaredk squared Posts: 608member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by rok

    can someone explain an issue with regards to this that has always bugged me:



    if i have a right, for whatever reason, to witness something with my own eyes, especially in a public place, how can someone prevent me from taking a picture of that exact same person, place or thing for my own use and review, so long as i never distribute it? i mean, right to privacy makes sense, unless it's a public place, no? of course, these days, it's damn hard to find anyplace that is truly "public" -- usually someone owns it and therefore restricts picture taking or whatever. which still seems assinine to me.



    i only bring this up because an apple store manager read me the riot act about taking pictures in his store, when they even allowed them during the opening and they were plastered all over the 'net.





    You were taking pictures inside the store, which is private property. If you were outside the store, in the public right-of-way, such as a sidewalk, then you could take all the pictures you want through the window.
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