New Delhi: In a development that casts serious doubts on the veracity of claims made by smartphone makers regarding their products, Huawei has issued an apology for having used a photograph actually clicked on a professional camera to suggest how great its smartphone camera works.
The recently launched P9 smartphone has been promoted for its excellent camera features. In a move to promote it further, Huawei posted a picture few days back on Google+, claiming that the P9's dual Leica cameras "make taking pictures in low light conditions like this a pleasure." The image posted was quite impressive and had great details considering a smartphone camera.
From the caption, it seemed obvious that the company was promoting the picture quality taken by Huawei P9, despite not really saying so. However, it soon emerged that the picture was taken from an equipment worth around $4,500 (Rs. 3 lakh approx).
David Ruddock from Android Police, a tech website, noted that the photo was taken from a Canon EOS 5D Mark III with EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens. He found that Google+ keeps the EXIF data - which includes the camera name and model - for any photo uploaded on the site through which the trick by the Chinese electronics giant was revealed.
After the issue was highlighted, the company played safe and removed the picture from the social networking websites.
"It has recently been highlighted that an image posted to our social channels was not shot on the Huawei P9. The photo, which was professionally taken while filming a Huawei P9 advert, was shared to inspire our community. We recognise though that we should have been clearer with the captions for this image. It was never our intention to mislead. We apologise for this and we have removed the image," it said in a statement.
However this was not the first time that a smartphone company tried to cheat on photographic abilities. In 2012, Nokia released a promotional video, which showed the image stabilisation technology of its Lumia 920. Later, it was found that the video was shot by a proper video camera.
The recently launched P9 smartphone has been promoted for its excellent camera features. In a move to promote it further, Huawei posted a picture few days back on Google+, claiming that the P9's dual Leica cameras "make taking pictures in low light conditions like this a pleasure." The image posted was quite impressive and had great details considering a smartphone camera.
From the caption, it seemed obvious that the company was promoting the picture quality taken by Huawei P9, despite not really saying so. However, it soon emerged that the picture was taken from an equipment worth around $4,500 (Rs. 3 lakh approx).
David Ruddock from Android Police, a tech website, noted that the photo was taken from a Canon EOS 5D Mark III with EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens. He found that Google+ keeps the EXIF data - which includes the camera name and model - for any photo uploaded on the site through which the trick by the Chinese electronics giant was revealed.
After the issue was highlighted, the company played safe and removed the picture from the social networking websites.
"It has recently been highlighted that an image posted to our social channels was not shot on the Huawei P9. The photo, which was professionally taken while filming a Huawei P9 advert, was shared to inspire our community. We recognise though that we should have been clearer with the captions for this image. It was never our intention to mislead. We apologise for this and we have removed the image," it said in a statement.
However this was not the first time that a smartphone company tried to cheat on photographic abilities. In 2012, Nokia released a promotional video, which showed the image stabilisation technology of its Lumia 920. Later, it was found that the video was shot by a proper video camera.
