Lauren Goode

Recent Posts by Lauren Goode

Sony Updates Lens-Style Camera to Include Photo Gallery, Better Connectivity

Sony’s better-in-concept-than-in-execution camera is getting a welcome update.

The mobile photo app for the Sony QX10 and QX100 lens-style cameras, which I reviewed in full a few months ago, will now have a built-in photo browser. The previous version of the app, called PlayMemories mobile, didn’t have a photo gallery, which meant users had to leave the Sony camera app and navigate to the smartphone’s native camera roll to see the photos they just snapped.

And Sony is promising that the updated app, which for now only applies to iOS, will result in a twice-as-fast connection speed when it comes to wirelessly linking the Sony cameras with the smartphone app. An Android app update is in the works, Sony said in a press release. Finally, a firmware update next month will allow for HD video recording and higher ISO settings with the cameras.

The Sony lens-style cameras hit the market this past fall, at a cost of $250 for the 18.2-megapixel QX10 lens and $500 for its higher-end sibling, and offered a unique way to take pro-level photos with your smartphone. The lenses are technically digital cameras, as I wrote then, packed with image sensors and a shutter button, but they look like cylindrical lenses, without a viewfinder. You smack them onto the back of your smartphone to transform that five-megapixel pocket computer into what’s supposed to be a cool camera.

As I experienced, having to frequently reconnect the lens-camera with the smartphone felt like a hassle when trying to capture a series of photos throughout an event or outing, and the lack of a photo gallery in the app just seemed silly. Sony said updates were on the way, and here they are, at least the first batch of them.

Latest Video

View all videos »

Search »

The problem with the Billionaire Savior phase of the newspaper collapse has always been that billionaires don’t tend to like the kind of authority-questioning journalism that upsets the status quo.

— Ryan Chittum, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review about the promise of Pierre Omidyar’s new media venture with Glenn Greenwald