DISQUS

Phanfare Blog: The iPhone as a GPS logger

  • Brad · 9 months ago
    How good of a camera can you put it a device that size? Apple doesn't want to add the moving parts that would be required to get a half-way decent lens for obvious reasons. I've probably taken 6 pictures with my iphone and that was mostly to test the Facebook app. I'd much rather carry a decent P&S camera and know that I can piggy-back on the GPS log.
  • erlichson · 9 months ago
    I think you can put a decent camera in the device if you care enough. there will certainly be some limitations in terms of depth of field control, which is hard to achieve with any camera with such a short focal length. building an autofocus lens will also be hard. today, the iphone takes decent, but not stunning outdoor photos. indoor photos are more problematic. there has also been some work in academia about doing focus in software. finally, you can fix the non-linearity of the lens in software. the panasonic lumix does this today.
  • Khürt · 9 months ago
    I think a GPS logger feature would be useful for Wi-Fi as well. I would like an app that scans for wireless access points and logs the geolocation of those access points.
  • Nikon D90 Camera · 8 months ago
    Every time someone builds a product that "does it all" it usually fails to do any of the individual things better than the specifically designed products. Cameras in phones are a good thing for capturing those impromptu moments and images but they will never compete with a half decent camera.
  • erlichson · 8 months ago
    I agree with you that purpose-built devices usually dominate. but in some rare circumstances, we see true convergence. Wi-fi got integrated with laptops; music players and cell phones converged pretty well in the iphone; wifi access points and natd routers converged in linksys boxes.