Soccer moms take the real important photos that matter and I'm absolutely serious here. And look at this for another opinion about photos that matter
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=110757
Sure they do; my wife certainly does. Without her, I'd probably never be in a photo anyway... the invisible husband!
To your point, it's the soccer moms of the world (or dads as the case may be) who take the "boring" shots - groups, families, minor events that get remembered later much more fondly - that often matter most, while their photographic spouses are off making "art" along with occasional portraits.
In my prior post I was being facetious in any case. I do see a market for this camera. It isn't me and probably isn't many here. But it is very likely a good camera for my wife. The thing is... there are a great many good cameras that would fit my wife today and I have to believe her needs are going to be very similar to most other soccer moms and dads who don't fancy themselves as artists but want good images of their kids and friends and activities.
I'd like to think my X100 is also a good choice - put it in Program mode / Auto ISO with a decently fast floor shutter speed and sure as shootin', she'd get decent shots most of the time with that. Unfortunately you need an experienced photographer in the family to size up the requirements and pre-set the camera, but once set, the X100 would do a very good job indeed.
There is a trail of cameras following my wife around, most of which are still here and functioning perfectly. I think I was most successful when I bought her a Leica Minilux, but that was late in the film game, sadly. Terrible viewfinder but all she had to do was press the shutter release and move on. Good image quality. For enough years to make me not totally regret buying it, a very happy wife was the end result.
Next as a runner up would be a Canon p&s digital would be runner up. It was not bad but no where near the quality of the Leica output in those days. Got used a lot though because it was convenient, and high IQ and high res photos are not needed when she was snapping kids at school for the grade school yearbook. Not the tool I would have used but I was busy elsewhere in those days.
I utterly failed in providing her access to my Contax film cameras, or the dumbed down but still nice Nikon with AF which she killed when the camera swung forward from the strap around her neck into a student desk. Oops.
A 4/3s Olympus followed for her. Never really caught on with her big time but she did use it faithfully, probably due to the zoom. I still think her Minilux snaps were superior in quality and content though.
Now more often than not she uses her phone, or I get called to the school do use whatever tool I want, "just get me images of X, Y and Z."
I don't think my wife really needs a 60 FPS auto-pick-the-best shot camera, but maybe I'm wrong... maybe it is exactly the sort of camera an unskilled shooter (she never will be truly skilled but does take lots of photos at school and is improving) really needs. Talking about depth of field and blurring backgrounds largely gets forgotten year to year, if it ever was absorbed. For me those are critical creative tools, for her, learning about them gets in the way. She'd rather the shots be in focus more often than not and how much is in focus is fairly irrelevant to her.
But could a V1 or J1 slipped in her purse fill the bill and deliver images she'd approve of? Probably. Ok, no doubt. But then so could a bunch of other digital higher end p&s or better cameras, and likely at better price points. Somehow I don't think that Nikon will create a tidal wave of demand that obliterates all those other potentially good options.
