More Than A Number

The long dominance of the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTI on Flicker is over. As of August 19, 2009, the Apple iPhone has become the most used camera on Flickr.

Although many traditional digital cameras maintain a large edge over the iPhone in quality (the aforementioned Canon camera features a 10.1 megapixel lens verses the iPhone’s 2 megapixel), the overall availability of quality cameras within mobile smart phones has long led to their popularity among online social networking and photo sharing sites. The ubiquity of the Apple iPhone means that a digital camera is only as far away as a user’s mobile device.

Another thing leading to the popularity of the Apple iPhone on Flickr is the built-in application that allows users to instantly upload images from their mobile phone to their computer. As opposed to digital cameras that require users to interface with a computer, once an individual has downloaded the Flickr application from the iPhone Apps Store, users can instantly upload all of the photos on their mobile wherever they are, maintaining high quality speeds in both EDGE and Wi-Fi environments. The versatility of being able to search photos by tag and to maintain a Flickr account on the go has added to this mobile phone’s picture sharing popularity.

Though the recent statistics include all three versions of the iPhone while only including the latest version of each of the digital cameras, this poll shows a trend towards the use of mobile smart phones as portable image servers.