Neil Hughes
The iPhone lineup is becoming the new standard for picture taking, analyst Ben A. Reitzes with Barclays declared in a note to investors on Monday, calling Apple's smartphone "the digital camera of choice for consumers and enthusiasts."
He noted that the latest data from Flickr shows that the iPhone 4 is the most popular camera used on the site with over 51 million registered users. That beat the second-place Canon EOS 5D Mark II, as well as the Nikon D90, Canon EOS REBEL T2i, and Canon EOS 7D.
When tracking solely smartphone use on Flickr, the statistics show complete domination by Apple. The top four smartphones for picture taking on Flickr are, in order, the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS.
The only other smartphone in Flickr's top five was the HTC EVO 4G, which had less than half the active users of the fourth-place iPhone 3GS. In fact, the only iPhone model that didn't make the top five was the first-generation handset released in 2007.
Reitzes said he believes the iPhone has replaced the standalone digital camera for many consumers because of the ease of use it offers, as well as the ability to quickly share photos online.
"This usability helps warrant a premium for the product and creates stickiness with software that connects consumers with other Apple products," he said.
The popularity of picture taking and editing on iOS devices was demonstrated last week, as Apple revealed that it had sold a million copies of its new iPhoto software for iPhone and iPad in less than 10 days. iPhoto for iOS is available on the App Store for $4.99.
Charles Martin
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69 Comments
I'm surprised the 4S isn't ranking higher.
This is going to make people start demanding a 12MP camera in the new iPhone, isn't it?
So Android leads in activations, but iPhone leads in everything from apps to web surfing to photography.
These types of statistics seem consistent with the hypothesis that the iPhone is more widely used as a true smartphone, while Android phones are treated by consumers more as feature phones or even dumb phones.
And really, this isn't so surprising. The iPhone is part of a larger platform whereas Android phones are not. Android itself is not a platform -- it's just some "free" source code that OEMs can use as the basis of their own platforms. But after decades of being treated as low margin device assemblers by the likes of Microsoft and Intel (in the case of the PC guys) or decades selling dumb phones or very limited feature phones (the cell phone guys), there really weren't any OEMs out there capable of building a platform. Now Google is semi-scrambling to pull together some semblance of a true platform, but it's probably too late.
Very fuzzy logic here both the misleading heading of this thread and/or statistics as this pertains only to people that use Flikr. Of course the iPhone would dominate - how many digital cameras can you directly upload photos to Flickr?
Next.
The title should state Cameraphones.
This is going to make people start demanding a 12MP camera in the new iPhone, isn't it?
I'm equally as shocked as the top FOUR spots all being iPhones, and the 3G, which isn't sold anymore, still outranks the 3GS, which is still for sale. Just more proof that people with iPhones actually WANT to use their phone, whereas most Android owners HAVE to use their phone.