Nearly ten years ago, well before Android became the dominant smartphone operating system it is today, Andy Rubin and his colleagues were designing it as a software platform for cameras. That revelation came from Rubin himself during a presentation at Japan's New Economy Summit. According to PCWorld, Android in its earliest days was intended to improve the connection between digital cameras and PCs. Bringing new app experiences to cameras — a relatively stubborn market at the time — also seemed to be on the radar.
"We thought it would be good if we could build a camera platform with third-party apps," Rubin said. Ultimately though, even before Apple's iPhone had launched to consumers, the mobile trend became clear. "We decided digital cameras wasn't actually a big enough market," said Android's former leader. "I was worried about Microsoft and I was worried about Symbian," Rubin revealed. "I wasn't worried about iPhone yet."
Android would then redirect its efforts toward a smartphone OS, with early prototypes famously bearing a close resemblance to BlackBerry's offerings. Obviously much has changed since then, but in some ways Rubin's original ideas have been realized in products like the Samsung Galaxy Camera and Nikon's Coolpix S800c.
Comments
So Samsung got it right. How about that…
By ozkl on 04.16.13 10:51am
Many years too late, then again if it launched back when Android was announced it would have been one hell of an ugly camera.
By TheSebianoti on 04.16.13 11:17am
Actually, its a beautiful camera.
By mnemonija on 04.17.13 4:10am
The relationship between Samsung and Android sounds like a bad soap opera.
Supposedly, Andy first went to Sammy for launching, who buffed him for their own Bada OS. When Bada went nowhere, Sammy came back to Andy to be the next Nexus maker. Then when Sammy became the king of Android, they hardly acknowledged Andy’s brainchild. Now Andy’s off (or back) to his roots, and Sammy is eying other options like Tizen.
Sammy and Andy is really a topic worth a long-form report by the Verge.
By Jbvrg on 04.16.13 11:46am
They focused on the Camera software? I have a hard time believing that….
Every OEM has basically outdone stock Android in terms of camera (both hardware and software)
By Sined on 04.16.13 11:01am
Android is software. Software for cameras, not hardware. False correlation there buddy.
By Demios on 04.16.13 11:04am
As for the software end, that is debatable.
By Demios on 04.16.13 11:06am
They ninja edited the article, but there was a section stating “The Android team has focused, with every iteration, on the camera software.”
I was pointing out that the stock Android camera software is VERY rudimentary and is missing a lot of the finer controls that even a point and shoot would have. All they really did was add 1 or 2 nice features in every iteration.
ALSO, Nexus Camera hardware has, unequivocally, been worse than any other OEM’s flagship phones of that generation.
By Sined on 04.17.13 11:37am
the camera market is 100% closed. its the worst kind of market i could imagine. for years and years photographers are waiting for an open source alternative. hacks like CHDK or magic lantern already made crazy things possible, magic lantern opened up an entire segment → professional quality amateur filming, CHDK allowed for creative exploitation of what these cameras can really do, people wrote scripts for it enabling features things that go far beyond usual capabilities. android running on a dslr would be a dream come true.
By molesarecoming on 04.16.13 11:17am
Nikon released the DNG format for their raw files as open source to alleviate the fear of proprietary standards for photographers.
By chesterharry on 04.16.13 11:45am
Nikon uses the proprietary CEF format. DNG is an Adobe open format which most camera makers, including Nikon, choose to ignore.
By olli.thomson on 04.16.13 11:55am
nikons format is proprietary. thats why you get terrible results in lightroom.
but even if it were not, the format doesn’t matter much, im talking about the operating system running on these devices. the system on my d700 is terrible. it can’t do jack. nikon made me pay 160 $ for a fricking timer, and even that thing works as if an idiot constructed it. the fact is, cameras could do so much more in-cam/built, the possibilities are endless. but they are rather blocking access to their platforms and sell you incremental updates and accessories.
By molesarecoming on 04.16.13 12:28pm
Wow. I didn’t know this. Any suggestions for retaining quality when uploading to Lightroom?
By TigerMSTR on 04.16.13 3:36pm
it doesn’t matter, as i say – raw is open to interpretation anyway. what lightroom cannot read is additional info which nikons own converter uses to give you better looking automatic results. but if you shoot raw automatic processing does not tickle you, you bend and shape the raw data until you like it, for each and every picture that you make. if you don’t want that you don’t use lightroom, you shoot preprocessed jpg’s which are built in-cam by the same engine thats in nikons raw converter.
By molesarecoming on 04.16.13 8:06pm
sigh
By Idioteque on 04.16.13 11:20am
I agree, I love my stock android on my nexus as a UI as a whole but would KILL to have the camera software that htc and Samsung have brought to the game.
I believe Samsung has really taken the lead on camera software features and functionality. It’s almost mind blowng what you can do with SIII and now the SIV with htc hot on their heels.
By jomamm on 04.16.13 11:41am
I think it would be difficult for stock Android to have great camera software since it’s built to be universal. Of course OEMs can make a better integrated piece of software because it’s their hardware, too.
By Tatanko on 04.16.13 12:22pm
No I definitely think they can improve on it. In most cases OEMs seem to rip out the stock camera app and build their own from the ground up anyway. Samsung get criticised a lot for pretty much everything, but the camera software app on their phones is actually very good, and feature packed.
By Razormike on 04.16.13 12:29pm
Really difficult to believe this story, since until an year earlier (2003) Rubin was already at the head of a mobile phone company (Danger Inc). Why would he move to cameras and then to mobile phones again in a couple of years?
Cameras of all things are also very cost conscious, manufacturers don’t want to put big powerful CPUs just to run something like Android’s apps. As we saw with Nikon’s camera lagging on apps last year, that’s a problem even today.
So I doubt he ever planned to dedicate himself to the camera market. Probably he was trying for anything that would bring in funding for his new company and – especially for a presentation in Japan – cameras just happened to be one of the possibilities.
Also, during his days at Danger Inc its biggest competitor was Blackberry, not Microsoft or Symbian – and the blackberry was precisely what the first Android prototype phone targeted. Yet he doesn’t mention it?
Makes me wonder what’s the true purpose of this revisionism.
By gkpm on 04.16.13 11:31am
Perhaps there was a non compete clause in the selling of Danger that prevented him from making a direct competitor to it. I’d say this far along the path there would not be a real tangible benefit from lying about why he started Android.
By chesterharry on 04.16.13 11:48am
When Google purchased Android one year after Rubin’s presentation the goal was already to make mobile phones: http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-08-16/google-buys-android-for-its-mobile-arsenal
So he moved from phones to cameras back to phones in about one year? Doesn’t sound like he put a lot of weight into that camera idea.
I’m not sure why is saying this at all at this point. Perhaps legal reasons to do with the ongoing Java litigation?
By gkpm on 04.16.13 11:59am
There is no ongoing Java litigation.
By Razormike on 04.16.13 12:31pm
Perhaps because it is true? I think you might be reading too much into this. Asking “cui bono” nets nobody as the answer… or does it? Perhaps he is in league with the creator of obscure trivia games. ;)
By ldrn on 04.16.13 1:41pm
As my mom used to say: when it doesn’t add up, someone is not being truthful.
By TigerMSTR on 04.16.13 3:37pm
Lets be clear, Judge Judy said this first! Unless…your mom is Judge Judy which makes you birthed from an awesome human being good sir.
By jbrandonf on 04.17.13 10:15am