The Camera Phone

First picture taken with a camera phone source

History

The first camera phone was created in 1997 by Philippe Khan at the hospital while his wife is in labor with their first daughter. He fused a camera and a phone together and the first picture was sent to about 2,000 family members. Everyone was shocked about the short time between her birth and the picture being sent.



In 1999, Kyocera Visual Phone became the first camera phone to be sold commercially. Originally called a "mobile videophone," it had a 110,000-pixel front-facing camera and was released in Japan first. The United States did not embrace the trend until 2002 when Sprint released the Sanyo SCP-5300. The camera phone's abilities was considerably comprehensive, containing flash, self-timer, zoom, filters and white balance control.

From there, camera phones took off and sales skyrocketed. Sprint, Sony, and Nokia, a leading Finnish manufacturer, released new phones with higher pixel capabilities and more camera features. Sprint's PM8920 had a designated camera button and a multi-shot option to take multiple pictures sequentially. Nokia's N90 featured a 2MP camera with autofocus and an LED flash.

Once the smart phone became popular, the growth of the camera phone was stunted. It was difficult for manufactures to fit the bulky camera into the coveted sleek design of the smartphone. However, in the recent 5-10 years cell phones manufacturers have stepped up their game to include high resolution cameras.

Nowadays, cameraphones are so common and frequently used that it would seem weird to have a phone without a camera and only a few people own regular cameras. Most grandparents, parents, teenagers, and kids use cameras on their phones on a daily basis. I myself have already taken over 25 photos today and its only 10:30am. In today's society, the camera phone invention shapes our personal interactions and how we use social media.

Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/camera-phone-history/