In new ad, Nokia admits its new phone is really a camera

Nokia's ad for its new Lumia 1020 phone is all about the camera. All of it. It's a camera with a phone attached.

Will it put Nokia in the frame?

When someone is finally honest with you, it's refreshing.

All these years, Apple and Samsung have been selling us phones that really aren't phones at all.

We don't make calls on them. We fiddle about on them like mini-computers.

Finally, Nokia has taken steps to admit that its new phone isn't a phone. It's a camera. A really, really good camera, at that.

In the launch ad for its new Lumia 1020, the company explains that Finns aren't what they used to be.

No one does any phoning or texting or surfing the Web. The sole reason to buy this (hopefully) wonderful gadget is the camera.

Regretfully, this results in drifting down the same antisocial path as Apple's recent "Photos Every Day" spot, in which no one can live without photographing everything they do.

You can't experience anything if you don't immediately have photographic proof these days.

Just as you have to show your driver's license to a cop -- should he stop you for no reason -- so you have to Instagram pictures of your latest journey to work, or there's every reason to think you're not alive.

It's a touching coincidence that Nokia launches this ad on the very same day that the company's vice president, Bryan Biniak, huffed that Microsoft had better get its app together.

He told the International Business Times: "To give you a reason to switch, I need to make sure the apps that you care about on your device are not only on our phones, but are better."

In the meantime, here's an amazing camera with a nice keyboard attached. Sadly, you can't Instagram on it yet.