IFTTT Do & the slow death of the digital camera
I’ve been playing with the new IFTTT camera app and it got me thinking about how the original camera app on my iPhone isn’t as useful as it used to be. After all, it’s just a camera app. If I want it to actually do anything with the photo I’ve taken I have to tell it what to do. By pressing more buttons. How very 2014.
If you haven’t already seen it, IFTTT Do is a set of apps that extend the original IFTTT idea where you provide some simple rules and the software automates them. For example, if I take a photo of a receipt it automatically puts it into my expenses folder in GDrive, a photo of the little monster doing something will end up in a shared album for my family. It does what computers do well and automates repetitive manual tasks.
This made me wonder what the market for old school digital cameras was looking like. According to the Camera and Imaging Products Association sales are looking pretty much as you’d expect. Heading down:
Looking at our internal logging we see the same with equipment staff and students are using for taking photos. Data here is for every booking made to our central equipment pool for activities related to photography:
And, on a more anecdotal note the images on the SD card inside my digital camera have been there for months. There are things from October last year that are really nice but I just haven’t got round to getting them imported.
The reason why I haven’t taken the photos off my camera, why staff & students are borrowing increasingly more iPod Touch, and (I guess) why IFTTT Do exists is that in the main we don’t like the middle steps in the process.
Does that mean our ever smarter ways of working are great because we’re streamlining our processes? We’re more efficiently arriving at our goal with less time wasted on the unnecessary.
Or should we worry about what we’re losing?
By using a smartphone rather than a digital SLR I’m thinking less about shot composition, learning nothing about all the variables that go in to creating a good shot.
Not doing any edits on those pictures takes away a whole load of graphics skills that are easily transferrable to other projects. I might not have learned Photoshop if all I ever did was share pictures from a smartphone.
If the photos never leave the camera roll of your smart device are you sure you know where they are? Are they backed up? Who can see them? Do you even own them? Maybe you’re the next poster family for the anti-gay marriage lobby.
Automating the distribution process seems like it could take the personal touch out, remove an element of control, maybe even proper consideration of the how/what/why of sharing.
Personally I’m finding the IFTTT apps really useful. They’re time savers and fit nicely into my work style. But in our drive for efficiency I wonder what learning opportunities we’re taking away.
I like that I can spend less time faffing with low value pictures and leisure time with my SLR but is that a reflection of the market? Sales don’t suggest it. Will this be the usual routine of sales drop, prices rise, less people can take part in the hobby? Feels like a potentially risky time for the field.
Originally published at tdalton.co.uk on June 24, 2015.
