Over the weekend, I wanted to take a side-view shot of me doing an elephant trunk yoga pose (I’ve never seen myself do it, and if I looked over at a mirror, I’d fall), so I set up my Samsung Galaxy S3 cell phone by propping it against one of Allie’s toys and setting the timer.

The lighting was dim and the flash on my phone wouldn’t work because I was really low on battery. I considered changing the Scene Mode on the Android phone to “Dim Lighting” so it’d extend the exposure to make things brighter. All of a sudden, I thought, “Hey, I can take this photo on the iPad Mini. Duh! And I don’t even need a prop because the case props the iPad up on its own.” So for the first time, I touched the iPad’s camera icon and prepared to set up the shot. I touched the slider to make the camera forward-facing, then I looked for the option to set the timer. Since iPad has no “Menu” button like Android has, I could not figure out how to bring up the Options menu. There are no buttons on the camera screen to do anything but take the photo, choose video or photo, and to turn forward-facing or backward-facing. I exited the camera app and went into basic Settings to see if, like other things, options for the apps are actually hidden in basic Settings and not in the app itself. Nope, no options for doing anything with the camera at all. WTF.
I went on the social networking site and asked for tips. Someone said their iPhone has an “Options” button on the camera, but that it only had the options of panorama, gridlines, and HD. Another friend told me there ARE no options for the camera; I’d have to look for an App in the iTunes Store and download a separate camera app to do what I want. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I consider this BASIC. How can Apple be “such a superior product” and not even have basic crap like a timer function and different settings on its built-in camera? My Galaxy S3 phone has, built-in, 5 shooting modes (single shot, share shot, buddy photo share, beauty, smile shot, not that I’ve even tried any of those), 3 effects modes (black & white, sepia, photo negative), and 10 scene modes (portrait, landscape, sports, party/indoor, beach/snow, sunset, dawn, fall color, text, and candlelight). If none of those make you happy, you can also manually set the exposure value, white balance, ISO, metering, focus mode (auto or macro), resolution, and you can also turn on/off various other options like flash, timer, auto contrast, guidelines, anti-shake, image) Of course you can also choose where you want the photo to be stored, such as in the phone or in a separate SD card, which is an option no Apple device will give no matter what app is used, because Apple products do not want you to access the internal hardware so they do not allow for memory to be added by an SD card. It’s also, I’m sure, a way to sell iDevices with progressively larger internal memory options and charge people more.

I was not going to pay money to bring this remedial camera up to par on the iPad Mini, so I guess that’ll be yet another function I will not use the iPad for. You’d think that with such a bare bones system being sold, Apple would charge a lot less for iDevices, but nope. I don’t think I’m asking for a lot, here. I’m not asking for as many options as the Galaxy S3 has, I just want a few simple options, such as either manual adjustment of exposure time, or an “indoor” mode since the iPad does not have a flash, and a timer. Basic, basic. I’m not telling it to do what a DSLR camera does. (BTW, the last time I used my DSLR, I took this shot of the Supermoon on June 22. A few of my DSLR-savvy friends had to deal with my whining about settings, and Mr. W had to crop the shot for me, but ultimately, I guess I’m happy with it. Just for fun, here it is: 200mm lens, F/11, 1/250 secs, ISO at 250

I was confused why my settings were so different from my friends’ settings on their Supermoon shots, especially the ISO. That’s what I get for being SO rusty I had to brush cobwebs off the DSLR when I pulled it out, and I had needed a quick tutorial on setting up the tripod from Mr. W.)

On the drive to work, I asked Mr. W, “Okay, I do NOT understand why so many people like Apple. The more I learn, the more I don’t understand this. Can you explain this to me?”
He pointed out a few things, such as:
* Apple hardware is very stable and reliable
* Apple community is better than Android because it’s less fragmented. I asked what he meant by “fragmented,” and he said because so many devices by different manufacturers use Android, there is inconsistent tech support, different OS updates being used/available to different devices at different times, and too many third-party app developers.
He admitted that the Samsung Galaxy hardware is in fact, “very good,” but that it doesn’t change the fact that the Android apps available in the open-source environment are hit-or-miss on quality. He said Apple controls their developers and apps, so they will not allow for a release of an inferior quality app, and if one slips by, Apple will see to it that it’s “taken care of” ASAP. I said that it sounds like Apple is a control-freak company, and he agreed and said that’s what makes them so good — tight hold on quality control, to run their system as they wanted.

Our conversation brought up the possibility in my head that I may not be as much an Android fan as a Samsung Galaxy fan, because my first smartphone was an LG Ally (which I drowned in the lake by using my kayak as a stand-up paddle and doing a little dance with my feet on the outer edges of the kayak), and I was NOT impressed by that Android phone at all. Hmmm.

Generally, in theory, I still lean toward Android’s way of doing things. It’s like a communist government vs. a capitalistic free market government. I like and am comfortable with the concept that people can put stuff out there for consumers, and if consumers don’t like it, they can vote with their wallets. Besides, I have no problem doing a little homework reading reviews. The Apple way just feels like the corporation has too much control, in the same way “rumor” has it that we’ve had the technology for electric or hydrogen or other environmentally-friendly cars for a long time, but the big gasoline industry had been knocking out their competition with their fat wallets and influence.