What’s the number one camera being used right now as represented by the number of photos shared on Flickr? The Apple iPhone4.
No where on this list of the top 5 cameras do you see any mention of Android devices. Why is that? Apple has clearly made strives to improve the camera on their phones, but is it because of the multitude of applications that are motivating people to share their photos on Flickr or other photo sharing sites? Some might say that Android cameras just plain “suck”, but others will clearly disagree. It’s not as if there aren’t any applications to help take better photos. So maybe it’s because with all this talk about how the iPhone camera is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it’s about time that the Android camera gets a little bit of love. And that’s exactly what VentureBeat’s Jolie O’Dell is doing in her new book Android Photography.
In this 160 page book available for pre-sale now, Ms. O’Dell sets out to promote how cool the platform is. In an interview with me, she says that since she’s been a big Android advocate for a long time, she finds the platform very exciting and “in practice, the phones end up being a huge outlet of creativity for me, personally.” And since she carries around an Android phone all the time, she found it useful when traveling and finding beauty in the world all around her. But the age-old question is, why not the iPhone? Well, she thinks that it’s “over”. In fact, she feels that they’re just inaccessible with few carrier options, no real hardware options and the price can be unappealing to some.
So what’s exciting about this book? Android Photography is an instructional book with a run-down of some hardware and some applications. In addition, Ms. O’Dell as included some information about photo composition, editing, and even how to upload and share your creative work online. And before you think it’s just 160 pages of tough reading, think again. She’s put together some inspiring photo galleries with some jaw-dropping photos from a wide range of photographers around the world. Bottom line? According to Ms. O’Dell, we’re going to be shocked at the kind of results we’ll get out of an Android.
As a photographer, I’m always one to favor my Canon 7D SLR, but often when I’m out about town, I’m carrying my Android phone. And I’ll admit that I’m often thinking that my friends are taking way better photos using their iPhone. I mean, just look at Lisa Bettany’s Camera+ photo app for the iPhone which has been a rousing success or the prominence that Instagram has had in mobile photography — it’s just increasing exponentially. But now, after hearing about Android Photography, I’m thinking that there’s hope for improving my photos, and what I find incredibly helpful is that the examples that are in this book come complete with details on how they were taken so you can learn and try and recreate them.
Android Photography is set to be released in February and can be purchased off of Amazon in paperback format (sorry, no Kindle version). Who knows whether this will help reinvigorate the Android camera revolution, but with studies showing that Android applications being more popular than iPhone and the proliferation of these devices across all carriers like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, Android Photography might be the book for people to read in order to understand how to really take a photo.
Staying positive is one step towards living a happy life, right? Signal Patterns, developers of psychology-based web and mobile applications, has created a new iPhone application that helps you stay in the right frame of mind so that you can be emotionally and physically happy in your life.