Ultimately, its success could come down to how easy it is to manage footage and photos. Perhaps this is for users who are so young that they don't own a smartphone, but how big a market is that for Canon to make something so specific? This might account for the surreal crowdfunding experiment.

IвЂ™d much rather my parents bought me waterproof, shockproof housing rather than a camera that had no screen and required me to navigate an unnecessarily fiddly process to copy stuff to the device IвЂ™d rather be shooting with anyway.

I canвЂ™t pretend to know what kids want, but IвЂ™m trying to imagine a 13-year-old version of myself owning, say, an iPhone 6. If you canвЂ™t instantly see what youвЂ™re shooting, and canвЂ™t instantly review what youвЂ™ve shot without picking up another device, is an activity cam really worth the effort over a rugged housing for your smartphone? At the beach or swimming pool, maybe, but beyond that? ItвЂ™s hard to say.

As a concept, it strikes me as both logical and innovative though itвЂ™s hard to foresee how often a person (however young) would want to put down their phone and grab an IVY REC. This is a camera that you pick up and use deliberately rather than endlessly recording life from wherever youвЂ™ve attached it. Rather than call it an вЂњaction cam,вЂќ the IVY REC is being described as an вЂњactivity cam,вЂќ designed for those moments when you donвЂ™t want to risk soaking or smashing your phone. ItвЂ™s difficult to put the IVY REC into a category, filling that strange, un-evolved slot alongside the likes of Google Glass and wearable cameras, while not intended to be always-on. Watching a staid and conservative company make efforts to go after a youth market is often fascinating, but Canon appears to have done a good job here, unashamedly embracing bright colors and emphasizing fun and accessibility. The companyвЂ™s efforts to broaden its customer appeal is entertaining to watch, as demonstrated by the recently launched EOS M200, which appears to be targeted at non-tech-savvy customers who like flowers and looking pretty (a.k.a. The marketing is also somewhat surreal for Canon, a company that is far more comfortable creating heavy, expensive, complicated boxes for men who like heavy, expensive, complicated boxes. Perhaps something of an omen, but this shot from Canon's press release shows the IVY REC being left behind. I'm split between respecting Canon for trying something new while also feeling a little bit embarrassed for them. I'm trying to imagine any other established camera manufacturer going this route, and it'sВ genuinely difficult. No doubt the development of such a product has cost significantly more than the funds raised through Indiegogo, so this might be more of an experiment in customer relations than a concerted effort to find a means of developing new products. Why would a well-established company such as Canon have to turn to crowdfunding in order to develop a product? The now-completed campaign on Indiegogo shows that 522 perks were claimed and appears to have raised just shy of $60,000 - surely a sum that is small change for a corporate multinational such as Canon. One of the most bizarre aspects of this cameraвЂ™s launch is how it has been brought to market. Surely, Canon has finally designed better means of connecting a smartphone, though IвЂ™m not particularly optimistic given that the launch video for the EOS M200 - a camera thatвЂ™s intended as a step-up from a smartphone, but for adults - shows that the process still looks somewhatВ daunting, not helped by the fact that Canon believes that a convenient вЂњnicknameвЂќ for a device can be вЂњEOSM200_C64D7.вЂќ Note to Canon: if a nickname is longer than the device's actual name, is not pronounceable, and contains randomly generated characters, it is not a nickname. Will the new app be better than the old? We wait to find out.

Canon mini cam app