According to the bean counters over at Strategy Analytics 918 million camera phones were shipped during 2010. That figure is going to increase by 21% this year and it’ll hit 1114 million or just a hair over 1.1 billion. Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? On July 11, 1997 Philippe Kahn, a French entrepreneur, took a photo of his newly born daughter with what’s heralded as the first camera phone. He sent that photo (above) to over 2,000 people. In 2002 Nokia launched the 7650 (below), which was not only the first device to run on Symbian, but it was also the first Nokia to come with a camera; it had a resolution of just 0.3 megapixels. Two short years later the Finnish firm became the largest producer of cameras. Over 4.2 billion camera phones have shipped since the year 2000, an astonishing number.
With time, thanks to advancement in technology, we’ve seen some progress in the field of mobile photography such as the Nokia N73, a 3.2 megapixel shooter that produced crisp photos thanks to the Carl Zeiss optics, and then the N95, a 5 megapixel shooter, again with Carl Zeiss glass, that many could honesty say finally replaced their dedicated point and shoot camera. Fast forward to today and the 12 megapixel packing Nokia N8 is hands down the best camera phone on the market, and it’s also able to capture 720p video.
If you think about how many important events have been recorded thanks to someone bold enough to take out their mobile phone during natural disasters, political strife, and other such turmoils, you start to appreciate how camera phones have really changed things over the past decade. Where do these devices go from here? They can already do live streaming video … so 1080p 3D 60 frame per second over LTE Advanced is about as exciting as it’s going to get? There’s got to be something else.