Tech.co publishes an interview with Eugene Panich, CEO of Almalence, on mobile imaging trends. Few quotes:
"The software onboard smartphones today is revolutionary. The ability to take pictures in low light, digitally zoom (or crop) without significant resolution loss, and capture moving objects without blur is in large part a function of software, not hardware. In fact many smartphone cameras are designed from the ground up based on software requirements."
But Panich believes that the value added by software is likely to slow in the future. The great achievements of the last five years cannot be matched going forward, at least not without a total reconfiguration of the smartphone camera, which includes the hardware.
“There are a lot of ideas being tested right now, but the industry has not picked a direction yet. But the industry understands that the next step is a total overhaul of the smartphone camera.”
Some of the ideas being tested are wide angle cameras, attachable camera pieces, pop up cameras, and array cameras. Each has its merits and demerits, and none has set itself apart from the pack so far.
Sorry, I couldn't agree more than your appraisal of the mobile industry and SW. Almost every one of the hardware add-ons you mentioned have limitations and further, no compelling killer application to warrant implementing the HW. Algorithms are getting better and more efficient to run on ARM and it is going to be these SW based applications that will continue to take the HW further near and long term. Wide angle never has and never will be a killer app in consumer mobile imaging. Pokemon Go is. I think the mobile SW revolution is in its infancy.
ReplyDeleteI agree that software will always be the driving force and that has been proved again and again. I do believe he is right though that there won't be much more without some hardware advances. Once array cameras are released by a major player we'll start to see some killer apps and it will hopefully kick start a new software push (it would be very difficult to do depth without some hardware to help).
DeleteI agree as well, software will be the major factor, hardware advances are necessary, I am waiting to see some of the new and exciting apps that are on the roadmaps
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