(paper rustling)
- Oh yup, well that's just about as gross as I remember it.
(laughing)
(chewing loudly)
- If you've been on tech Twitter this week
you may have noticed a bevy of bloggers and YouTubers
sharing selfies with freeze dried ice cream
sent over from smartphone maker OnePlus.
I got one too.
A phone-sized box packed with a crunchy and creamy snack
ready to eat anywhere on the planet.
And more important than the way it tastes
is why it's freeze dried in the first place,
because it's ostensibly ice cream for astronauts.
That ties in with the branding on the box and landing page
when you follow the similarly space-themed URL on it.
Why is OnePlus suddenly struck with space fever?
Oh, the answer has to do with OnePlus' historically
underwhelming smartphone camera performance
and historically much more prominent camera company
called Hassleblad and OnePlus' shrewd understanding
of just how powerful licensing can be.
Licensing is more prevalent in mobile tech
than most people realize it.
For example, if you watched last year's review
of the Moto 360 smartwatch, you'll know that despite
the name and elements like the classic bat wing logo,
Motorola had very little if anything to do
with that product's manufacture.
It was actually created by a Canadian company
who paid a fee to license the Motorola design elements
on the correct assumption that people would be more likely
to buy a Moto 360 smartwatch
than one stamped with the actual creator's brand eBuyNow.
Licensing also plays a smaller part
in how publications and yes, YouTube channels make money.
You know how you'll sometimes see manufacturers
make commercials featuring reviewers thoughts
on their product?
Well, when it's done who legally, those are licensed clips.
Meaning the reviewer or in my case the publisher
has been compensated in exchange for the use
of that intellectual property.
And yes, full disclosure, my own content
has been licensed for use in some of those commercials
in the past, including some by OnePlus.
If you wanna learn more about that, see the ethics policy
on my website.
And licensing has also long played a big role
in making phone cameras seem more capable than they are
by leveraging the names of heavy hitting camera companies.
14 years ago, Nokia partnered with Carl Zeiss
to craft the lenses of the legendary N95.
More recently, Zeiss partnered with Sony
to optimize some elements of its Xperia smartphone cameras.
Before that the Blackberry Priv featured a camera branded
by German optics company, Schneider Kreuznach
and in probably the most effective example of co-branding,
Huawei has for years enjoyed a tight relationship
with German camera legend Leica.
And usually when this conversation comes up,
you'll hear from two extreme camps.
The first falls for it hook line and sinker.
They say, look, it says Zeiss right on the back
of the phone. Obviously it's the best camera ever.
And the second more informed but often more cynical group
says, no, look they just paid a million dollars
to put the word Leica on the same phone.
It's pure chicanery.
The truth as usual is more nuanced.
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How effective a licensing agreement is
depends on how much the companies have actually collaborated
on the end product.
A positive example in my view is Zeiss and Sony
because Zeiss aplied its T-star coatings
to the Xperia cameras so that internal reflections
were reduced.
Less effective was the Schneider and Blackberry alignment
which either didn't do anything to begin with,
or it wasn't enough
to overcome the Priv's other deficiencies.
And the result was a mediocre camera.
And again, in my opinion, Huawei's Leica partnership
is probably the most successful of all
because not only are the lenses built
to Leica specifications, the company also has input
into which camera sensors are selected for the phones,
how the photos are processed through the phone's ISP
and then there's the nerdy bonus of the user being able
to apply filters based on the color profiles
of classic Leica film cameras.
For what it's worth that information is correct as of 2018
when Huawei took a bunch of media folks, myself included,
on a tour of Leica's global headquarters.
I remember our group interview being contentious at times
because Huawei obviously wasn't expecting us
to press them so hard on so many details,
but it was worth it because it gave me some
of the most valuable insight I've been able to get
into how smartphone cameras are made.
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To bring it back to OnePlus,
according to all the leaks we've seen,
it seems certain at this point that the company has worked
with Swedish camera company, Hasselblad on at least one
of its new smartphones, probably the OnePlus 9 Pro.
And this is where the space ice cream
and moonshot teasers come in.
See Hassleblad is more than just 180 year old company.
It was the first company to build cameras
specifically designed for the space program.
Hasselblad cameras have gone into orbit,
on to mercury and Gemini spacecraft of the '60s.
They took the first indoor and outdoor space selfies
during those missions.
They've captured countless images
from the space shuttle program,
both here on earth and in orbit.
And yes, it was Hasselblad cameras that snapped some
of the most iconic photographs ever taken
from the surface of the moon.
All that answers why OnePlus is so dead set
on pushing the space angle on all its most recent teasers.
The question is how effective that partnership will be
at making OnePlus smartphone cameras true contenders?
And we will not know that until we're actually able
to shoot with the things.
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I know, maybe that sounds obvious,
but I thought it important to say it, especially right now
because already we're seeing so much buzz
around this Hasselblad partnership.
So much reporting that feeds into the hype
that OnePlus wants to create.
And importantly Hassleblad has licensed its brand
to smartphone makers before.
First time I can find a record of was in 2014
on the Vertu Signature Touch
which Android Central's Derek Kessler danged
for what he called an inexcusably poor camera performance.
Yeah.
The second time was on 2016's Moto Mod accessory
for Motorola's Z line of phones,
which had impressive zoom ability,
but underwhelmed in basically every other aspect.
And the acquisition of a majority stake in Hassleblad
by DJI a few years ago, only further muddies the waters.
In short, we don't know what to expect from this partnership
but these precedents are not exactly reassuring.
So when OnePlus announces the OnePlus 9 family,
pay special attention
to the words it uses regarding Hassleblad.
The weaser words like they tuned our camera performance
or they certified our cameras or the granddaddy
of all phrases that mean nothing,
we worked closely together.
None of that actually tells you anything.
For my part, I'll be pressing OnePlus on this,
in any interviews I may have leading up to the launch.
And I'll report back what I hear in whatever reviews
I produce after I receive the phones.
To close, I'd like to make the point
that despite its cosmic branding,
freeze dried ice cream is not actually a part
of the space program.
It turns out in micro gravity,
good old fashioned regular ice cream works just fine.
It seems that even NASA is aware of the power
of perception and good PR.
I reached out to OnePlus for further insight
but the company declined to comment on the record.
As always neither OnePlus nor any other company
was given any editorial input into this video,
nor is this a paid promotion obviously.
Please subscribe to the Mr. Mobile on YouTube
so you don't miss my OnePlus 9 review
which will feature the real-world testing
that hopefully will answer some of the questions
I've laid out here.
Until next time.
Thanks for watching.
And if you can't stay home, then stay safe and mask up
when you're around others, as you stay mobile my friends.
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