iPhone's camera is awful, says new Nokia ad

One way of justifying that you haven't sold as many gadgets as another manufacturer is to explain that you're all about quality, not quantity.

This fine argument has been used by Apple more than once.

In a new ad, Nokia picks it up and slaps Apple across the chops with it.

For here is Nokia taking Apple's rather presumptive ad about its camera -- you know, the one that claims more people take pictures with an iPhone than with any other camera -- and slathering derision all over it.

The ad lures you into believing this might be that very Apple ad, or at least another in the series.

Then the voice of Helsinki sinks its teeth into Apple's hubris: "At Nokia, we prefer to build for quality, not quantity."

This is a noble intent, one not currently believed by my engineer friend George, who has now had to have his Lumia 920 replaced four times.

Here, though, Nokia tries to show several examples of what it sees as the sheer prosaic ordinariness of Apple's camera offering.

Here, pictures on the iPhone 5 resemble snaps from an Instamatic compared with the dazzling joys achieved by the Lumia 925.

Colors sing, action is captured by a veritable symphony of options.

Why would anyone buy an iPhone 5 after this? Why wouldn't everyone want an 8.7-megapixel camera, Carl Zeiss lens, and dual LED flash at their side all the time?

Especially when it can also text Pia about the new extra-pink Hello Kitty slippers its owner craves.

Clearly, Nokia has embraced the concept of its phones being a wonderful camera with a keyboard attached.

It's an understandable strategy, one that has already been expressed in the new Lumia 1020 ad.

Given that most people seem to use their phones for everything but actually talking to people, it's as well to own something that is identifiably yours.

Now, all Nokia has to do is to make its image a touch more contemporary. It can't readily make an ad suggesting all iPhone users are geriatric gum-grinders.

Samsung's already taken that space.