I was looking at old threads I started and I found this one about getting my first camera phone.
Wow! some of us were really wrong, including me. Guess they weren’t just a fad.
I don’t have a thread link but I’ll cop to being someone who said “iPad? Why would you want a giant smart phone that doesn’t make phone calls? Stupid idea that’ll never take off!”
This is why I’m not viewed as a technological luminary.
I checked the thread you linked to… Just WOW! It seems like just about everyone that posted thought that it would be a passing phenomenon and wouldn’t stand ‘the test of time’, for one reason or another. Definitely looks like ‘camera phones are here to stay’.
I really can’t remember my ‘position’ on the subject… Just a fad or here to stay/the next ubiquitous technological invention.
I do remember that, at the time I thought, “Cool! I wonder if it’s worth a shit?” 
Well, when people here started to get cell phones, lots of people said, “Why would you want to be reached while you are out and about? It is bad enough to get calls on your landline at home!”
I am sure there are still some people who still think that way, but my guess is the majority have found a few reasons to get a cell phone now.
I really don’t use my camera much, although it is a nice feature. I think I have probably taken about 40 pictures, tops, over the years with my phone.
I still don’t get ipads.
What useful things can you use them for that you wouldn’t just use a laptop that has a ton more functionality?
It was smart phones that made the difference. The ability to do more than make calls and send texts seemed like overkill, until the onset of a portable computer that did hundreds of things, only one of those the camera. In itself not much use, especially if you already have your own camera, but in tandem with other features like live feeds of Facebook, Twitter, etc, or sending full length emails, plus with upload speeds getting faster, and a decent resolution 16x9 screen to view them on, it made them more viable.
I find it fascinating to look back at posts from just a few years ago like that, especially when they are pre-something now common, like before YouTube, before Social Networking, or before streaming TV channels, and with mention of antiquated things like Netscape, Napster, or MySpace.
I use mine for reading books and newspapers and magazines on the subway. And I have like nine different Sudoku apps.
That was my point of view. Then, a friend gave me one as a gift. Haven’t put it down for a whole day since, and it’s been a few years.
I agree. I find it funny that the people that I know that own iPads have bought keyboards for them. The iPad, a NetBook that doesn’t have a keyboard.
As for books, the Kindle app on my phone works great for that.
Is it the portability that keeps you coming back?
Camera phones back in 2004 were about 0.3MP. So I can’t blame people for finding them crap. My first cameraphone was a 1.3MP, and that wasn’t very good at all. Now I have a 5MP and it is decent, but it still doesn’t compare to a 13MP point and shoot real camera.
It also doesn’t compare to a 5MP point and shoot real camera. The difference isn’t isn’t really the pixel count (at least, once you’re past 3MP or so). It’s the larger sensor, wider aperture, and better optics.
Still, as they say, the best camera is the one you have with you.
That,along with the intuitive interface. I was never an Apple guy, but I opened the box and although there were no instructions I was “fluent” in minutes.
ETA: I love having someone ask me about it in a bar. I show them a few simple concepts and they’re asking how to get one.
Oh, I remember when I first heard about texting I actually said “what are you retarded? you’re holding a phone, call them.” To be fair, when texting came out it was more expensive that calling and you had to text by entering two numbers per letter. But it still sounded like a really dumb idea. Little did I realize the value of not having to talk to someone. I thought the idea of paying for water was a joke when I first saw it popping up, too. Actually, ipods I thought were stupid as well. We already had mp3 players which I had been advocating for for a long time and no one was interested in them because you couldn’t download music on the fly, you had to load it up on a computer. So when the ipod came out and it didn’t have that feature I thought “no one is going to fall for some marketing gimmickry for an mp3 player that it more than twice what they currently sell for and doesn’t even have the feature everyone says they want in order to adopt them.” So yeah, I have a terrible track record with this.
And I still think iPads are ridiculous. Buy a goddamned laptop if you want to lug that thing around. Until they come out with cell phones were you can pull out the screen like a tapemeasurer, I ain’t buying one.
The correct response there is that one doesn’t have to “lug around” a modern tablet as they are very light and portable. The iPad Air weighs a pound. The Nexus 10 weighs 1lb 5oz. Ultrabooks weigh about twice that (and cost a small mint) and more traditional laptops with the same screen size are closer to 4.5-5 lbs or more. That’s all around the 10-11" screen size (I don’t care for the smaller 7" tablets).
I use Swype on my Android tablet and it works well in 90% of the instances I need it. If I need to type a long letter/post/whatever I’ll wait until I’m at my desktop. I own a bluetooth keyboard but almost never use it since I don’t look at my tablet as a productivity machine but rather an entertainment device – casual web browsing, reading webcomics, playing music, checking e-mail, reading e-books, playing simple games, YouTube, Netflix, etc.
I don’t know how many people NEED a tablet but it’s fun and useful to me. My wife has pretty much completely abandoned her old netbook and laptop for her tablet as well.
Laptop takes a billion years to boot up. Then you have to wait for all your windows fixes to load. Touch a button and my iPad is ready to rock and roll. For basic surfing, it’s awesome. While it’s not a computer, I can write documents and use spreadsheets and the like. If it had flash, I probably wouldn’t use my laptop at all. My desktop hasnt’t been on in a year.
What has changed is not the technology—it’s the way we think about photography.
It used to be that we thought photography had one purpose: taking a few pictures which would be printed, preserved and saved in an album, to be shared with friends and family next week and next year.These pictures were fondly called “Kodak moments”.You were limited to 24 shots on a roll of film, so each one had to count. The tool you used was a camera, which you kept in a closet, and only carried on special occasions.
Now, we know that pics are for looking at once, sharing with friends within the next ten minutes, and then losing track of among a mass of old folders on a disc which will be unreadable a few years from now. So the tool you use is a cell phone.
You’re already at least 5 years behind the times. Load photos onto a disc? You mean, like, physical media? Photos are for immediate uploading via Instagram to Facebook or Twitter or what have you, you can group them into themed albums later. If your phone memory fills up, you delete them and view them online just like everybody else.
And wandering out of 4G data network range is equivalent to “communing with nature”, even if that definition is “riding in a car through a dead zone stretch of I-90 through an agricultural corridor between South Bend, IN and Chicago, IL”.
In about just over a week, i am going to be hopping on to a time machine and traveling back to the mid nineties. I can just see the reader wondering where i picked up my own personal tardis, but no this was made by boeing or airbus. The location will be cuba, but at best, any cell connection will be edge quality. The rates will be exorbitant and the most i might be able to do is voice and text.
Since there is no data, the most useful thing on my phone, will be the camera.
Declan
I am thinking about ditching my smart phone for a clamshell as I tend to also take my tablet everywhere. I am not really into taking pictures or movies, that is more mrAru’s thing. What I do like is the ebooks, the music and the favorite movies I have on a SD shoved in the side of Diogenes [my tablet. What, don’t you name your devices?:dubious:] I can go wireless but frequently I have that turned off outside the house and rely on what is stored internally. Not so much games, I think I have bejeweled and solitaire on it.