"Smartphones Destroying High-End Camera Sales"

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:

May be cell phones being sold from Europe and US brands more everyday because japan is living a hard times since early 90s. I read an report last night , japan was the owner of %75 of electronics market at 1994 and they dropped to around % 6.

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I'm in the mobile phone business. The Japanese manufacturers have for a long time had a large business in low-end handsets for Asian markets, and in the last few years they've lost that business almost totally to Chinese competitors. At the same time, the high end of the market has consolidated around Apple and Samsung, and most of the Japanese handset manufacturing business has been squeezed out of existence in the middle.

This opens a question , there are hundreds of us based factories in china , will they take them from americans ?

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The ones I know about aren't "US-based", they're Chinese contract manufacturers with foreign customers. Some, like Foxconn, are actually based in Taiwan but have their big factories on the mainland---I don't know how that works politically, but I bet it's complicated. Certainly China would love to take over the places of giant consumer brands like Apple and Samsung, but they can't do that by kicking the brands out; instead they're working on competing up from below with the Chinese domestic brands like Huawei.

To stay vaguely on-topic, I don't have the sense that the Chinese electronics industry is very excited about advancing camera technology. There isn't a big cultural history of art photography in China, which may or may not be the reason. It may also be seen as an area where the existing technology is good enough for consumer purposes, so the payoff for improving it is low.

-NT

Prof_Pixel said:

Because they are "caught between a rock and a hard place". What choices do they have? Try to enter the smartphone marketplace? Good luck to that.

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I read japan is producing the most complicated phones only for japanese market and they are ultra expensive and does not match with any international system. They do it.

Rudeofus said:

.. I don't see a reason why a camera had to be added to a phone instead of the other way round.

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Wouldn't want to hold my F100 or D600 to my ear.. at least not for to long.

bobwysiwyg said:

Wouldn't want to hold my F100 or D600 to my ear.. at least not for to long.

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Not quite, but have you soon the Samsung S4 zoom:

http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxycamera/s4zoom/

Prof_Pixel said:

Because they are "caught between a rock and a hard place". What choices do they have? Try to enter the smartphone marketplace? Good luck to that.

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I don't pretend to have the solution to the problems that the established companies that sell digital cameras face. If I did my life would be significantly different.

I do work in a combined engineering / marketing role at a prominent technology company, and understand that if you are aware of macro trends in society you had better ride the trends or they will ride you!
One amazingly huge trend is the portable device market. A similar situation is how simple iPods with credit card sweepers and portable receipt printers are making a huge impact in check-out registers. What is Fujitsu and others going to do to buck that trend? That's for them to figure out.

There must be intellectual property that can be used in the new adjacent markets that have emerged around traditional cameras. There's a lens, a sensor, electronics to control focus, exposure, and other critical parameters that are common from one type of platform to the next, knowledge of how to make a camera good, inexpensive, fast, efficient, whatever. If you can't capitalize on that, you fight an uphill battle and will find yourself losing ground. I'm glad to hear that both Canon and Nikon have good diverse businesses.

bobwysiwyg said:

Wouldn't want to hold my F100 or D600 to my ear.. at least not for to long.

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The vast majority of cameras sold during the last 30 years were not big SLRs but of the P&S type, some if which were smaller than common mobile phones.

Let's remember that the first camera&phone combo that people wanted to use was not built by a camera or a phone maker, but by a computer maker that happened to be led by a great visionary.

Rudeofus said:

Let's remember that the first camera&phone combo that people wanted to use was not built by a camera or a phone maker, but by a computer maker that happened to be led by a great visionary.

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Nokia?

Seriously, the iPhone wasn't a significant player in the camera market until very late in the game; our Finnish friends were the biggest-selling camera manufacturer in the world before there even *was* an iPhone.

-NT

ntenny said:

Nokia?

Seriously, the iPhone wasn't a significant player in the camera market until very late in the game; our Finnish friends were the biggest-selling camera manufacturer in the world before there even *was* an iPhone.

-NT

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Ericsson too, which Sony bought. And now you never hear of them. Both the Nokia and the Ericsson stocks were traded on the Swedish stock exchange back in the day and were VERY solid investments.
That was in the 90s.

Today it looks like Ericsson is into mobile broadband as a service, and telecommunication. The Lumia range from Nokia isn't doing so well.

Rudeofus said:

The vast majority of cameras sold during the last 30 years were not big SLRs but of the P&S type, some if which were smaller than common mobile phones.

Let's remember that the first camera&phone combo that people wanted to use was not built by a camera or a phone maker, but by a computer maker that happened to be led by a great visionary.

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You took my comment w-a-y too seriously.

Rudeofus said:

The vast majority of cameras sold during the last 30 years were not big SLRs but of the P&S type, some if which were smaller than common mobile phones.

Let's remember that the first camera&phone combo that people wanted to use was not built by a camera or a phone maker, but by a computer maker that happened to be led by a great visionary.

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Or an ideas thief who was good at marketing. I find it ironic that on local tv last night, ghey showed the episode of futurama where they all buy "eyephones". If you havd not seen it before, watch it. A good summary of the whole smartphone + social media explosion.

Thomas Bertilsson said:

I... if you are aware of macro trends in society you had better ride the trends or they will ride you!

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When Apple brought out the first iPod touch (without a camera) in 2007 Kodak worked on a prototype snap-on digital camera for the touch. Luckily they didn't try to go further because Apple quickly brought out a touch model with a built-in camera.

ntenny said:

Seriously, the iPhone wasn't a significant player in the camera market until very late in the game; our Finnish friends were the biggest-selling camera manufacturer in the world before there even *was* an iPhone.

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Sometimes it's better to do it right than to be first. Apple understands this.

Prof_Pixel said:

Sometimes it's better to do it right than to be first. Apple understands this.

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Explain then, the luke warm offerings that we have seen over the last few years from Apple?

What Apple are good at is creating hype and buzz over what they sell. They know how to create desire and how to be the "cool kid" on the block. Some days I think if apple offered two tins and a string, people would still line up to buy it.

Way, way off topic....sorry.

Thomas Bertilsson said:

Ericsson too, which Sony bought. And now you never hear of them. Both the Nokia and the Ericsson stocks were traded on the Swedish stock exchange back in the day and were VERY solid investments.
That was in the 90s.

Today it looks like Ericsson is into mobile broadband as a service, and telecommunication. The Lumia range from Nokia isn't doing so well.

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but the cameras on the lumina phones are beautiful ... huge image density ...
and the images i have seen that the phone can make are pretty beautiful ...
if i had the 600$ and the money to support the data plan LOL
i would have bought the 29$ cheapo flip phone i just bought

jnanian said:

but the cameras on the lumina phones are beautiful ... huge image density ...
and the images i have seen that the phone can make are pretty beautiful ...
if i had the 600$ and the money to support the data plan LOL
i would have bought the 29$ cheapo flip phone i just bought

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I know that the camera is pretty good. But as a phone it's not good enough, so they're not selling any.
They put that 41 megapixel camera on it to lure people to buy it, because it lacks in every other feature that makes it a good phone.

Thomas Bertilsson said:

I know that the camera is pretty good. But as a phone it's not good enough, so they're not selling any.
They put that 41 megapixel camera on it to lure people to buy it, because it lacks in every other feature that makes it a good phone.

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huh ..
doesn't make calls?
or have reception?

or do all the gee-wizz stuff phones are "supposed to do" these days ?

hoffy said:

Explain then, the luke warm offerings that we have seen over the last few years from Apple?

What Apple are good at is creating hype and buzz over what they sell. They know how to create desire and how to be the "cool kid" on the block. Some days I think if apple offered two tins and a string, people would still line up to buy it.

Way, way off topic....sorry.

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Look at the demand for their products! Most young people want iPhones, iPods, iPads... It's at the top of wish lists, and in surveys among young people it's all about Apple! They're laughing all the way to the bank.

jnanian said:

huh ..
doesn't make calls?
or have reception?

or do all the gee-wizz stuff phones are "supposed to do" these days ?

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Functionality isn't there. Sure it makes calls, but as a 'smart phone' it's based on Windows operating system, which has almost no support in the market, which means there's a lot less to choose from from an app standpoint.

Prof_Pixel said:

Sometimes it's better to do it right than to be first. Apple understands this.

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I dont know what that means.
I still cant use bluetooth to transfer files to them. They lock you into their platform.
And Bluetooth has been around for donkeys years!

90% of Apple's success is marketing and people reading tech blogs written by amateurs and unquestioning fans.

Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk

Prof_Pixel said:

Sometimes it's better to do it right than to be first.

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If you are developing weapons control software for fighters and bombers, yes. If you are developing avionics control systems for space shuttles, yes. If you are developing embedded pacemaker systems for fragile human hearts, yes. And if you programmed the system software onboard the now-interstellar Voyagers 1 & 2, absolutely yes.

But if you are developing for throw-away, consumer-level, introduced-today-obsolete-tomorrow entertainment gadgets, including smart phones? Or any other end-user commercial software product targeted to the business and/or home mass markets? After almost 30 years as a developer doing software engineering in this industry I'm here to say, no. Absolutely not. That's not how the industry works today.

These days both hardware and the software that drives it are—with malice aforethought—designed, engineered, marketed, and discarded (for subsequent upgraded versions) on very, very short, artificially constrained and truncated life cycles. And a great deal of effort and money has been expended over the years to condition the customer base to accept and expect this model.

Would you like to know how many times in the past 30 years I've been party to engineering efforts in past companies where the design goals specifically stated that we were to cripple or leave out product features that everyone knew the customer base wanted? Can you guess why? Because you never leave money on the table. And dribbling out intentionally incomplete implementations over several upgrade cycles generates more money in the long run.

Same goes for hardware and software bug fixes. Generally speaking, one doesn't intentionally code bugs into a product. Although I have been asked to do that before. But when the inevitable unintentional ones begin to roll in after each upgrade release, if it's not a critical (show-stopper) error almost the very next question is always, can we put this off until the next major upgrade? The reasoning is for it to become yet another inducement to force the customer base to give the company more money down the road. Because you never leave money on the table.

In today's industry it's all about market share, not long-term quality, where the repeat consumable IS the product itself. The winners are those who get to the party early with the first-est (thus guaranteeing the greatest number of repeat purchasing cycles), not those that arrive later with the best-est (thus guaranteeing happy customers who have no reason to repeat the purchasing cycle even once more).

An early implementation of an incomplete and/or buggy product, but one with a lot of buzz, will generate far more money overall than a carefully crafted, rock-solid implementation of the second or third bug-free generation of a competing product introduced 12 or 18 months later. Guaranteed.

I know it's ugly, but sadly that is the way it is...



Ken

aapl's stock price has been stuck on a plateau for some time now. That's all I care to know. And I'm not inspired to buy any of it. This cell phone and ipad bit is bound to succumb to market saturation at some point. It stands to reason. About the only thing left is an app for a time machine, a cure for cancer, and 3 wishes. As for cell phone being a camera, then why not save your money on the phone and service, and just look at everything with your eyes, remember it in your brain, and you won't even have to save it on some hard drive or cd. The point being, very few electronic photos ever actually get printed on an actual piece of paper. Therefor, they are not pictures or photographs at all. Cellphone disqualified from contention.

jnanian said:

huh ..
doesn't make calls?
or have reception?

or do all the gee-wizz stuff phones are "supposed to do" these days ?

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The phone system and ecosystem isnt mature enough yet.
Typing is a pain if used to gesture input, or needing to type fast.

I see it eventually taking over from both Google and Apple, and being *the* leader. What happens in the enterprise segment would be interesting to see - that would be the bread and butter for MS.

analoguey said:

90% of Apple's success is marketing and people reading tech blogs written by amateurs and unquestioning fans.

Sent from my LT26i using Tapatalk

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maybe that is true for their phones, but i have had and used apple computers since 1986. sometimes i had
to use a dos based IBMPC but that was back in the early-mid 1980s ... never wanted to use a pc based computer
seeing friends here in the states and abroad had nothing but problems with the OS and viruses &c ..

but the lap/desktop/pad is as far as i would go, not really planning on buying a telephonicecomputer system
cause it seems like with technology at people's fingertips people are forgetting simple things like
common courtesy, not being rude, and other simple tasks like figuring out 15% gratuity or using a dictionary ...

It's often suggested that Apple computers are some how not as vulnerable to virus attacks, etc. I question that. They are such a small percentage of the commercial computing environment (think money or access to info that will lead to money) there just is no incentive to focus on them.

bobwysiwyg said:

It's often suggested that Apple computers are some how not as vulnerable to virus attacks, etc. I question that. They are such a small percentage of the commercial computing environment (think money or access to info that will lead to money) there just is no incentive to focus on them.

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/thestreet/2013/07/12/apple-holds-upper-hand-in-pc-decline/

Not that small, and it looks like they have a plan.