Pansaonic Eluga S now joins 'selfie phone' bandwagon: Is mobile innovation slowly dying?

Panasonic is the next to jump on the selfie phone bandwagon with the Eluga S. However they are not the first. Sony pipped it to the post with the Xperia C3 and Microsoft has also followed with its Lumia 720, phones that are bound to figure on every narcissist’s bucket list. We've also seen budget selfie phones like the recently launched Lava Iris Selfie 50. All we need now is for Samsung to join the bandwagon and we can officially put selfie-phones into a separate category. That would also help in identifying people who are buying these phones and give us enough time to dispatch them off to Mars, because selfies look better with low gravity. We have to put a stop to this madness. Yes, we get it. Selfies are big. Everyone wants a piece of your duckface, but can we please focus on useful innovation instead of releasing phones with 5-megapixel and 8-megapixel front cameras, and optical zoom? (this one is not yet a reality, but it's just a matter of time). FYI, phones like this already exist by the dozen (Xiaomi Mi 4, being one example), so it's not a novel idea by any stretch of the imagination. Sony has already figured out how to add flash on the front, so that you can blind yourself while taking a selfie. It’s brilliant we say, and such a great use of the vast resources Sony has at hand, and an immeasurably better project than say fixing something as 'unimportant' as the display on your flagship phones. Taking the perfect selfie it seems, is also more important than improving battery life so we don't have to charge our phones all the time. But clearly selfies are what people really crave and it’s all about the people, guys. At least that’s what they would have us believe. What it is is a cheap marketing gimmick, something to promote the phone to the masses. Instead of talking about real innovation or an improved user experience, Microsoft will promote the phone with inane visuals of people taking selfies, like it's an entirely new concept. Earlier rumours suggested that Microsoft has also decided to promote something called a ‘velfie’, which if it’s not amply clear, is a short video of yourself. However, there has been no show, so far. It was apparently to promote the Nokia X platform which has Vine as an app (you know, because Vine is an Android app), but we imagine most ‘velfies’ will be of people trying to get the right duckface. In a way, a ‘velfie’ is peek behind the process of a selfie, which means it’s bound to fail because it’s too deep for the average selfie crazed person. We are hoping the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't legitimise this stupid term.  

Hey guys, a Nokia XL is waiting for you. Create your 6 sec Velfie and share it here: http://t.co/c0RJNVrZOa pic.twitter.com/LUOnjVocOY — Nokia India (@NokiaIndia) July 3, 2014

  There has to be a better use of our time on smartphones and our cameras than taking pictures of ourselves. Is innovation dead in the smartphone world? The world is amazing; stop looking at your mug and you might just discover that.