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So I'm reading the Features page on Apple's iPhone website and I get to the iSight portion:

Apple's website wrote:

It simply makes more sense to teach iPhone how to take a great picture rather than teach people how to be expert photographers.

That says that Apple had to make its camera good enough to make up for their customers' ineptitude. Am I reading it wrong, or is Apple really insulting its customers this way?

Personally, I see this: https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... 9446_n.jpg as more of an insult, but that's just me. (Although Google does the same thing on the Nexus anyway: $100 for 16GB vs $260 for 48 GB.)

Apple has beein insulting its customers for decades. Why should you suddenly take offense now?

I think the most insulting things are the blatant lies and the patronising tone of their TV adverts.

Since when is not being an expert the same as being "inept"? Expertise implies an uncommon level of mastery not easily acquired. For any given subject the majority of people will not be an expert in it. To suggest that most of the customers of a mass market product will not be an expert in photography, or any subject for that matter, is just common sense.

What Apple implies is that you need to be an expert photographer to take great pictures with any other smartphone.

Again, lies and patronisation. Smartphone lenses are awful, even the iPhone one. I am genuinely impressed by the quality of smartphone photos, given their optics - Some of the Lumias are approaching proper camera levels of quality but even those aren't close to the optical quality of a basic point-and-shoot with a 35mm lens.

That insult you ?

And BTW, what apple stated is 100% true. Becoming a Pro photographer is not done in 10 seconds.
But saying that HW makes you a pro photographer... ok.

And $130 for a 32GB of nand on the iphone , yea its crazy , but its been like this with Apple since the 80s. Whats new?

and

"I think the most insulting things are the blatant lies and the patronizing tone of their TV adverts."

Actually I find the Apple commercial annoying, but not patronizing . What I cant stand is their audio track, drive me up the wall.

What offend me is the blatant market manipulation from company like Samsung. Paying people to write negative review of competitor products, paying people to write negative comment in BBS, etc..
Now that should be something to talk about.. not a comment that apple is trying to put more smart in the HW.

Yeah, I think their marketing is balls but this is a huge mountain being made out of...less than a molehill, even. Like an anthill. I think taking cell phone photos pretty much equates you with non-expert in the first place.

I'm not an expert at everything (some might say "anything") I do. I'm not even gifted at a good chunk of it, but I enjoy it and I do my best. I'm all for getting some help from technology.

C-A_99 wrote:

Personally, I see this: https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... 9446_n.jpg as more of an insult, but that's just me. (Although Google does the same thing on the Nexus anyway: $100 for 16GB vs $260 for 48 GB.)

I love how that graphic is displaying US SDXC prices and Australian iPhone prices.

I'd rather pay for 64GB/128GB of internal storage than muck about with SDXC cards. That goes for both iOS and Android devices (shaking my head at my Nexus 4).

FireGryphon wrote:

So I'm reading the Features page on Apple's iPhone website and I get to the iSight portion:

Apple's website wrote:

It simply makes more sense to teach iPhone how to take a great picture rather than teach people how to be expert photographers.

That says that Apple had to make its camera good enough to make up for their customers' ineptitude. Am I reading it wrong, or is Apple really insulting its customers this way?

Well, they are right - most people simply do not care about manual focusing or exposure/ISO selection, etc. They just want to press a single button and let the phone or camera do everything itself automatically. Doesn't mean that these people are dumb (and Apple doesn't explicitly imply it anywhere), just lazy or prefer to spend their time on different hobbies. Which is what Apple is basically saying.

That's more of a software problem and how Android doesn't handle them that well, although that's gotten better after the camera app gave the option to move photos/videos to the card. It's also an issue of total capacity, for users who need more than 64 GB. Still, $200 for 48 GB (which equates it to Google, although Google doesn't have a 64 GB option so it's even worse), isn't much better. Although I do have to apologize for not checking up on the pricing myself. It's an unfair shot since Apple is far from the only one with overpriced NAND.

Perhaps the description was more a matter of wording. Had they replaced "teach people how to be expert photographers" with "teach people photography techniques", it would avoid implying that having an iPhone gives someone the capabilities of an expert photographer. Still, I don't see it as much other than your typical advertising techniques.

I think that the quote is really about metering. I've actually found that metering on my iPhone 5 is as good if not better than the metering on my real camera (Fuji X100).

Not insulted here. It's like car makers saying that they should put seatbelt warning signs because most people just aren't conscious when it comes to safety, or camera makers including an Auto mode with their cameras because most folks aren't photography experts. The designers not only have to shoot for the best product they can offer at a certain price point (blame competition), but they also need to be aware of real world usage scenarios and put in place the necessary mechanisms to help using their product easier. Common sense, I guess.

FireGryphon wrote:

So I'm reading the Features page on Apple's iPhone website and I get to the iSight portion:

Apple's website wrote:

It simply makes more sense to teach iPhone how to take a great picture rather than teach people how to be expert photographers.

That says that Apple had to make its camera good enough to make up for their customers' ineptitude. Am I reading it wrong, or is Apple really insulting its customers this way?

Apple has always been about making hard things easy. It's really annoyed the power users and hardcore geeks over the years, but it's one of their core tenants.

FireGryphon wrote:

So I'm reading the Features page on Apple's iPhone website and I get to the iSight portion:

Apple's website wrote:

It simply makes more sense to teach iPhone how to take a great picture rather than teach people how to be expert photographers.

That says that Apple had to make its camera good enough to make up for their customers' ineptitude. Am I reading it wrong, or is Apple really insulting its customers this way?

I don't read it as an insult at all. The way I read it, the iPhone is supposedly going to take great pictures without much effort by the user. To the owner of an old Nexus S, that's wonderful news. The Nexus S can't take a good picture even with a full photography studio staff on hand.

Yes, I am so insulted by a camera that takes great pictures without requiring me to take classes and spend a small fortune on lenses.
How dare they?
We all have unlimited time and money so everything we do must match the standards of the most anally retentive geek we can find.

derFunkenstein wrote:

I think taking cell phone photos pretty much equates you with non-expert in the first place.

Snark aside, I'd say anyone who's truly an expert can take a good photograph with whatever's at hand. The rest of us need the electronic nannies provided by the iPhone and other modern smartphones and p&s cameras to make up for the other deficiencies in the equipment at that price point/form factor.

Seriously you're offended at that? If you stop step back for a moment and consider would a person really be taking a "quality" photograph with a phone? Probably not. What they are taking pictures of is their food at a restaurant, their kids' surprising moments, maybe some weather damage or a car accident, and more often than not some scene that's meme funny. All of these things are quick moment types of things and if you do want to preserve them wouldn't you want the software or hardware to do all the configurations for you on the fly?

"Wait kids. Before you have that funny moment can you please hold still while I adjust the white balance, focal point and distance on my DSLR?"

I find that a lot of people who are this easily insulted tend to come from the USA...

It's about as insulting as the existence of auto-focus and automatic metering/exposure. Perhaps you prefer manually exposing your medium format film after dialing in the focus for a minute or two?

Crayon Shin Chan wrote:

I find that a lot of people who are this easily insulted tend to come from the USA...

Hey, what an offensive thing to say!

I don't find it particularly insulting. It just acknowledges the reality that most people don't want to be bothered learning how to take good photos manually. Furthermore, anyone who is interested in learning more advanced photography techniques isn't going to mistake an iPhone for a decent SLR.

I have never owned (and probably never will own) an Apple product, but "openly insulting their customers" isn't the reason why.

Crayon Shin Chan wrote:

I find that a lot of people who are this easily insulted tend to come from the USA...

Yep. I'm from the USA and I agree, the percentage of people who wear their feelings on their shoulders is far too high. Embarrassingly high.

ClickClick5 wrote:

Crayon Shin Chan wrote:

I find that a lot of people who are this easily insulted tend to come from the USA...

Yep. I'm from the USA and I agree, the percentage of people who wear their feelings on their shoulders is far too high. Embarrassingly high.

French Canadians (Quebec) are even worse.

So for context....

What makes the iSight camera so remarkable is how beautiful photos look without your having to do anything at all. Just aim and shoot. That’s it. iPhone knows the best setting to use and how intense the flash should be, and it automatically recognizes faces in the frame. All because of the advanced technologies custom designed for the camera’s hardware and software. It just makes more sense to teach iPhone how to take a great picture rather than teach people how to be expert photographers.

That doesn't sound like an insult, implied or otherwise, especially considering the context of the pictures that iPhones are taking.

ClickClick5 wrote:

Crayon Shin Chan wrote:

I find that a lot of people who are this easily insulted tend to come from the USA...

Yep. I'm from the USA and I agree, the percentage of people who wear their feelings on their shoulders is far too high. Embarrassingly high.

When did people switch from wearing them on the sleeve to wearing them on the shoulder?

flip-mode wrote:

ClickClick5 wrote:

Crayon Shin Chan wrote:

I find that a lot of people who are this easily insulted tend to come from the USA...

Yep. I'm from the USA and I agree, the percentage of people who wear their feelings on their shoulders is far too high. Embarrassingly high.

When did people switch from wearing them on the sleeve to wearing them on the shoulder?

Maybe they keep their chips on their sleeve now.

derFunkenstein wrote:

I think taking cell phone photos pretty much equates you with non-expert in the first place.

I have to disagree with this. It's not equipment that makes the expert, rather it's the expert that makes the most out of whatever equipment is available to him.

I have a friend who is a pro photographer, and the pictures he took some time ago with an iPhone 4 put my own DSLR shots, plus a lot of my other friends' shots as well to shame. He just has a way of understanding how light would fall on an object even in "bad" conditions (like harsh shadows, etc), and how the optics/sensor on a cheap cameraphone work, that he can put those together and come up with some awesome shots.

Here are some of the shots in question. They were taken during a fun run a little over two years ago.







and for comparison, here's a shot taken by a buddy on the same day, and in the same light using an LX3



There are plenty of pros who do intentionally use "bad" cameras in order to get the effect they want.

jihadjoe, I don't know what you're trying to prove by comparing 3 highly processed pictures versus 1 that appears unprocessed. None of those first 3 pictures are "natural" light.

I'm just saying a pro would be able to make use of whatever equipment is available to him, as derFunkenstein was saying using a phone to take pictures made a person automatically non-expert. I'm also of the school of thought that post processing is all part of the process, but that's probably a bit too off topic already.

Here's a nice video on this topic, if you have 12 minutes to spare, and of course the ippawards if you just want more good phone pictures.

Well, it is pretty obvious that a camera is just a tool and everything depends on a user of this tool. You just chose the wrong example - many people (including myself) dislike the Instagram-like filters and similar post-processing artsy crap