Smartphones are up, lots of devices down
I found an article in Macworld which basically says that smartphones are killing video cameras and a few other devices. Can’t say I’m all too surprised at the numbers presented, considering the impressive progress in technology.
This makes sense from the perspective of the average person who doesn’t crave any special features that go beyond what a commonplace camcorder would get you. Most smartphones deliver perfectly acceptable video in terms of clarity, video quality, functionality and even audio pickup. It might not be the ultimate device in terms of doing video capture, but it’s just “good enough” for most people to not consider any other device for that purpose. Add to the list of benefits that a smartphone is most likely always with you and that it can also perform a myriad of other functions and I don’t think there is much left for most people to think about.
I want to point out that for those who are more serious about their video capturing, smartphones aren’t and perhaps never will be a real alternative, except if you are looking for exactly what they deliver in an artistic sense. There are just some things you can’t do with a smartphone right now, like specific frame-rate capture and hooking the devices up to all manner of extra hardware. Let alone that the sensors in smartphones are not up to spec when it comes to capturing all kinds of footage in all kinds of light or situations.
As much as technology as improved over the last 10 years, I will admit that I am a bit surprised that this has not happened sooner than it has. For many years I have been saying that a device convergence has been in the cards and that it will ultimately be inevitable, which has turned out to be true at least to some degree. Where you once needed to drag around a lot of different devices and equipment, you now pretty much only need your smartphone to do recording, editing and publishing it online. Quite remarkable when you think about how this was sci-fi not too many years ago.
Even though the numbers of sold devices in these specific categories have indeed declined, I wouldn’t make such a drastic an assumption as to think that any other class of device is doomed and will disappear from the market. Not yet anyway. There will still be a lot of things that dedicated devices can to better than a device with no specific purpose which is built for more general usage. Some people will still want to have a dedicated camera for photography or video recording or a dedicated games console for their video game playing. These devices will just get more clever and integrate even more into how the rest of the world operates on a bigger scale, just as things have been changing in that very direction so far.
Some purposes no longer demand a specific hardware to do their job, so perhaps some manufacturers better start figuring out how to live as an app developer, rather than someone who makes, distributes and sells a physical device of some sort. It’s all about reaching that “good enough” for it to be in everyones pocket.
[Via: Macken]
