Cameras on Phones

Even flip phones like the wildly popular Motorola Razr released just a year after Gizmodo’s debut had cameras built-in, but their tiny lenses and even tinier sensors made them nothing more than a novelty. You couldn’t even snap a photo of the sun without the results coming out grainy, noisy, and utterly disappointing. However, being able to quickly snap a self-portrait and text it off to a friend become such a popular use of cellphones that there was no doubt it would be a staple feature for years to come.

Smartphone cameras have improved dramatically since devices like the original Razr, and are more or less responsible for point-and-shoot digital cameras going the way of the Dodo—but that was an easy prediction to make back in 2002. What we didn’t see coming was the other ways that a camera on a mobile device would be useful. Social media has turned everything from selfies to photos of dinner into a true artform as everyone tries to impress their friends and followers, while features like Apple’s Face ID turn an iPhone’s front-facing camera into a more convenient alternative to a passcode.

Cameras on mobile devices have also allowed us to interact with the world in ways we never thought possible. Translating a sign in real-time is now as simple as pointing your smartphone’s camera at it, as is measuring the dimensions of a room, or turning an object into a 3D model. Games like Pokémon Go had throngs of players crowding parks and public spaces waving their phones around in the air, and that’s just the start of how augmented reality can leverage the feature. We’re even at the point that if a notable event happens and no one captured it with their smartphone, we start to question if it really did happen.