Hehe,

I really wonder if cameraphones have any practical use. True, they're a nice gimmick to have, but the picture quality generally turns out to be so poor that I doubt technophiles would want to archive them.

Cameras are just another one of those devices where if anyone wants truly decent pictures, it ought to remain a standalone device. Or... perhaps combine digital cameras with digital movies - but this has already been done for years.

I say this as a person who's never taken a photo with my phone intentionally for anything. I also say this as a person who grew up avoiding cameras in the first place... a pattern that's slowly changing :P

You're not alone with your view, certainly. However, some people actually are using them a lot, and in very interesting ways. If you want to read a bit about what our research has found, check out my group's research page (we're just finishing up two more papers on it, too, that are not posted yet):

http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~vanhouse/photo_project/

There has also been other research done on cameraphones in Japan (http://www.itofisher.com/mito/archives/okabe_seoul.pdf), Finland (http://www.fil.hu/mobil/2004/Koskinen_webversion.pdf), and the UK and US (http://research.microsoft.com/~asellen/publications/How%20and%20why%2004.pdf).