In case you tend to ignore these things, the iPhone camera is the most used camera in the world. The new commercial from Apple shows many ways that taking photos has become an everyday experience for most people.

Sure that’s like saying that a Quarter Pounder with cheese is the best burger on the planet… it’s not (I’m more a Five Guys or In&Out fan). But domination of a category does mean you set the standard that most use to compare. How dominant? Here’s the Flickr chart showing the most popular cameras on their site.

So I offer two lists for your consideration

What Traditional Camera Manufacturers Should Mimic About the iPhone

  1. Touch-screen Live View panels (yes, some cameras have this, but not enough).
  2. Downloadable apps that enhance the shooting experience.
  3. A data connection that doesn’t take an optional adapter and an engineering degree to setup.
  4. Direct posting to social networks.
  5. Automated backup of your images while shooting to a tethered device or to the Cloud.
  6. In Camera Panorama shooting using Photosynth or Occipital technology.
  7. Geo-tagging that is easy to use
  8. That megapixels are a lot less important to the end customer.

What the iPhone Should Mimic About the Traditional Cameras

  1. A Micro SD slot to backup or target when shooting.
  2. Less compressed options when shooting (in the meantime check out PureShot).
  3. Image stabilization that actually works well.
  4. USB3 connection speeds to transfer files.
  5. An official way to attach lens modifiers (yes I know there are lots of third party ones, but I find them clunky).

Okay… what would you add to the iPhone? What do you want in a next generation DSLR? Fire away.

 

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