In this newsletter:
📝 Post: Why Do Newer Phones Sometimes Take Worse Pictures?
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: Unexpected Headlines
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: The Future can be Scary
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: AI Headlines
😎 Pick of the Week: Weird Picks
📦 Featured Product: Lights
📝 Why Do Newer Phones Sometimes Take Worse Pictures?
At the risk of stating the obvious, just about everyone has their phone on them at any given time throughout the day. Which means everyone also has a camera within arms reach at any given time, too. And if you’re like me, you gave up on even considering buying a handheld camera to supplement your phone’s camera. They have become that good in recent years.
Except, have they?
Popular YouTuber MKBHD posted a few short clips showcasing the camera quality of the iPhones along with the at-the-time flagship Samsung phones to put that to the test. You can tell for yourself and argue with others about if the quality has increased or declined over time.
What you can’t argue is the processing these cameras are capable of doing today has exponentially increased over the years. Herein lies the problem. If our cameras are capable of so much processing power, why are our pictures not following suit? Why can we take the same picture with our newer phone and say to ourselves, “My older phone took better pictures.”
Well, this is where things can get a bit tricky. Within the camera and photo space, we have hardware and software features that are both becoming much more advanced and better by all metrics. Even if someone would argue an update of sorts to one of the given features isn’t “better,” there are ways to adjust and “go back” to the older version. At least in theory.
Modern camera phones have much more control over exposure, brightness, tone, noise, sharpness, and many other “full” camera features. Not to mention, they can identify objects, faces, QR codes, and adjust or blur backgrounds to create a bokeh effect. The processing power required to do all of this on the device, within a second of pressing the shutter button is crazy if you compare to previous models - and even older full cameras.
So back to the original question: if our cameras are much better by all accounts, why do our pictures appear worse at times? Well, as mentioned, we have to consider the hardware and software sides of the equation. Most of us just use the default settings that make all of the decisions for us. For example, when you do see a picture you take and argue that your older phone took a better picture - you’re only seeing that for the given parameters from that specific picture. Tons of things are factors in that argument: indoor vs outdoor, night or day, how much natural light, what’s in the background, what’s the subject, and much more.
All of those demographics of where, when, and how the picture was taking, in tandem with all of the qualities of a picture file mentioned above, dictate the choices the camera app on your phone makes. And for 99% of the time, it’s probably good enough. If not, good enough that most people wouldn’t even notice any difference between pictures taken by 10 different people and devices.
But sometimes the phone makes decisions you wouldn’t. Or sometimes you want to adjust the picture just enough to highlight a certain part of the image. Maybe you want the background to pop a bit. Or maybe the picture was taken at night and it looks washed out. This is where third-party camera apps come in. For both iOS and Android, there are probably hundreds of apps in this space I’m unaware of, so I will only focus on 4 in total that I am familiar with.
There are two apps on the hardware side that help take better pictures, by saving the original file in a format that saves as much information about the picture as possible - RAW. Your fefaul camera typically saves pictures in a JPEG or HEIC file that is essentially “flat” in that no settings were preserved. These third party apps give you more direct control of the camera hardware, allowing you to adjust shutter speed, ISO, focus, exposure, white balance, and more, while saving all settings, too. They include:
Halide
Moment
However, taking the picture is only half of the work. On the other hand, there are two apps on the software side that allow better editing of these pictures. These apps can read the RAW file which shows all of the information saved by the camera app. It’s also important to note, the pictures you take will appear to be worse at first. That’s because the camer app simply takes a picture - it’s not making any adjustments or creative decisions. That’s where these photo editing apps come into play. They include:
Lightroom
Snapseed
Taking a picture and editing a picture are two totally different things. If you are just taking a picture of a receipt, or trying to remember where something is or what it looks like, the auto setting on your default camera is probably good enough. But if you’re trying to take a picture of a landscape or try your hand at family pictures on a whim, a third party camera app and editing tool will be your best bet.
There are trade offs when choosing to use other apps, though. Obviously, it takes much more time as you may have already gathered. The taking of the picture takes time to adjust the focus and other settings as needed. Then, you must bring that picture into an app for further tuning. In general, RAW files are fairly large in size, too. And if you don’t delete the original after editing as saving as a JPEG, you’ll have duplicate files on your phone.
Essentially, your default camera is good enough, but if you find that it’s not doing as good of a job as you’d like, theres a few things to blame, and using a couple of other apps (or just tweaking some settings) will fix it. So if you’re like me and don’t want to carry around another device just for taking pictures, it may be worth looking into what your current phone’s camera is already capable of.
🗞️ ICYMI: Unexpected Headlines
I don’t like to report on leaks, because things change too much and it’s just too hard to keep up sometimes. But last week, Apple Accidentally Leaked More Than 10 New Products in macOS Update. So maybe we can expect some AirPods with cameras along with their other (expected) updated devices. We’ll find out within the next month or two!
Walmart finally launching Apple Pay support next week. That’s it. That’s the headline, and it’s one we never thought we’d see.
🗞️ ICYMI: The Future can be Scary
Comcast is turning your WiFi router into a basic home security system, for free. This is pretty interesting, but the WiFi signals can essentially map out your home, note where movement is happening, and notify you of unexpected movement.
States sue Meta over kids’ safety, seek nearly $200 billion, saying “it made its apps addictive for kids and broke child safety laws.”
Tesla’s Austin robotaxis are now fully driverless. So if you are in the area and see a car driving around by itself, don’t be ‘too’ alarmed. Until now, Tesla had an employee riding around as a backup should things go awry.
🗞️ ICYMI: AI Headlines
Slack launches Slack Code, where teams and AI agents build together
OpenAI ‘will be a public company in 2027’ or sooner, CFO Friar tells employees
Google just bought a bunch of Spirit Airlines data for AI training
😎 POTW: Weird Picks
I know the word “weird” is relative… but here are some picks of what other people have called weird:
📦 Featured Product
A few posts back, I shared some lamps for your office or home. However, I have since stumbled upon these picks that also have ‘lights’.
