What is with these obnoxious phone manufacturers who decided that widescreen would be such a good thing for phones? In the end, we find ourselves looking at video or stills that are the exact opposite of widescreen, because the natural, comfortable way to hold a phone when shooting is vertically. Why would I want to look at images through narrow curtains, and why have none of the phone makers (afaik) made any effort to fix this? I pit the lot of them, from LG to Apple.
because they don’t think it’s broken. Cite: the fact that they continue to release handsets with that aspect ratio.
The natural way to take a picture is to hold the phone like a camera, i.e. in landscape orientation. If your has positioned the buttons where portrait orientation is more natural, that’s a fault of the phone.
And, if you must take the picture in portrait view, nothing prevents you from cropping it to a proper portrait aspect ratio. You’re seeing more on your phone, not less.
They want the screens like that so you’ll use your phone to watch movies, spending too much money to watch something on a tiny screen in the process. How it affects shooting they couldn’t care less.
It is.
I rarely take pictures with a phone, I only got one with a camera a couple months ago. I just keep seeing photos and video shot in tall-screen, all the damn time, it looks wrong. A lot of people seem to prefer holding the phone vertically to shoot. Many phones today have the accelerometer to sense orientation, the manufacturers should design phones with square CCDs and pick the proper ratio for the shooting position. It would add a dollar or two to the price and the result would be so much less stupid looking.
nitpick, since I work in a field where we manufacture/assemble things- It might add a couple of dollars to the cost, which would translate to far more than a couple of dollars to the price.
It would add whatever the manufacturers think the market will bear to the price. If they think they’d make up the lost profit-per-phone in greater sales, they could even sell them for less. And if it was popular enough, others would pretty much have to adopt it without charging more to stay competitive. Or they could think it would be something people would pay a lot extra for, and they’ll charge a lot extra. It’s not like every single feature on the phone has the same profit ratio.
It’s really very simple: you goofs decided you didn’t have a problem with aspect ratios that not only diverged from the biologically derived (if only estimated) 4:3, but continued on in the opposite direction, and now they’re seeing how much they can get away with. One of the fundamental problems with the corporate world is that if it’s not about money, it’s about mischief.
what is the “biological estimate” which led to 4:3?
Didja ever notice that on keyboards and calculators, the numeric keypad has “1” in the lower left, while on telephones, “1” is in the upper left?
What the fuck, am I right?
Those fuckin’ aliens again.
I expected this to be a rant about “Nine” by Sixteen whine. God, I hate that song.
Sorry. I thought about using “9:16”, but then I figured that might look too much like some kind of bible verse. Please do not share bad songs with us, thanks.
Hold your gun vertically. Take pictures horizontally. Kids these days don’t get it.
Quick, call Charles Barkley. We’ve got a serious WPP going on here! It is the worst!!
Perhaps if you called it by how it is *actually *referred, 16:9, there would be no confusion.
No. Those fuckin’ Elbonians again.
I too am curious. That’s not something I’ve ever heard, and I can’t find any kind of trustworthy citation discussing which aspect ratio feels more natural.
From my perspective (ha ha I crack myself up), the 16:9 ratio on my iPhone seems to be no impediment relative (ho ho) to the 3:2 ratio I was used to. Fits more on the screen when I’m reading; offers a more pleasant Netflix experience while in bed. If mischief is the aim of corporate types then I suspect they could do better — this feels rather mild.
[Old Man]
Because its a PHONE.
It’s for making phone calls!
It’s not for taking pictures/texting/music/videos/ship-to-shore/navagating/gaming!
…and get off my lawn!
[/Old Man]