Camera companies are also often smaller than most people assume. This experience highlights the underlying problem: camera makers aren't software companies, at heart. I've variously been told by camera makers that their app didn't work because my phone was too new, because it wasn't from a popular enough maker to have been worth testing on, and then because it was too old to be supported. Instead it has a wide variety of phone makers doing different things using a much more diverse range of hardware, which makes it difficult for a camera maker to give a consistent experience across different devices. I'm aware X100V owners, for instance, have had a very different experience.Īndroid phones don't have a single company dictating what can and can't be done by apps. This makes sense from a security point of view, but means users have to manually change to their camera's Wi-Fi connection, rather than the app being able to do it in the background.Īlthough it's the lowest rated of the camera makers' apps on the Google Play store, I can't remember the last time I had a problem with Fujifilm's Camera Connect app, possibly because I'm typically testing the latest model. Likewise, it's long been an Apple restriction that apps don't have the power to change Wi-Fi connection settings. ![]() For many years its phones didn't include NFC hardware, so there could be no 'tap to connect' option for iOS users, and when it finally added NFC, it was only used for contactless payments. To support the 'security/privacy' arm of its sales pitch, Apple is very controlling over its hardware. It sounds like it shouldn't be too difficult a challenge: there are only two smartphone operating systems used in significant numbers: iOS and Android. So why hasn't this problem been resolved a long time ago? Phone makers don't make it easy I wouldn't wish this on anyone: the suite of smartphone apps I use when reviewing cameras.Įasy smartphone connectivity, whether it's to transfer photos, remotely control the camera or append location data to images, should be one of the main ways for cameras to compete with the (or, perhaps, take advantage of) the simplicity and ubiquity of smartphones, so it's very much in the interest of the camera makers to make this all work. Irrespective of image quality differences, the best cameras are much better for engaging with the photographic process than a little glass slab with a circle icon at the bottom of the screen.Įqually, a smartphone already has the communication capabilities, advanced interface and wireless contract associated with it, which should mean that there's no need pay to duplicate the cellular and GPS hardware, for your camera maker to try to develop an extensive input interface or for anyone to convince large, often intransigent network operators to provide sensibly-priced plans for devices that aren't going to be used for web browsing or phone calls. The experience can be deeply frustrating, as the concept holds so much promise: the idea of being able to use a dedicated camera to take precisely the photo you want and then be able to share or upload it using a smartphone seems obvious. ![]() It's been nearly twenty years since Nikon introduced the first Wi-Fi enabled cameras and 16 years since the iPhone helped to ushered in the modern smartphone era, and yet we continue to hear about how unreliable and inconsistent the experience of connecting cameras can be. Why is it so difficult to simply transfer some images to your phone? In part this is because the potentially useful image transfer apps can be awkward or unreliable to use. Your latest camera probably has Wi-Fi capabilities, yet we know a lot of people say they simply don't use that capability at all.
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