Apple Ordering 3.2 and 5-Megapixel Camera Sensors for iPhone and Future Product?

[cg0def]

Maybe 5 MP on the back and 3.2 goes to the front for ichat??

Not likelly since 3.2 mbp video chat takes a lot of bandwidth and way too much resources to process. They will probably have 2 different versions of the iPhone, one with 3.2 and one with 5. Plus Apple really needs something more than double the storage to differentiate the 2 models of iPhone. Add video to either camera and I'd be a happy user

 

[rtdunham]

...
I use to be anti video chat but i'm beginning to like the idea. Surely someone with an iPhone with video chat will try and get their significant other to also buy an iPhone if they don't already have one....

According to the Commonwealth Fund, "Forty-seven million Americans, or 18 percent of the U.S. population, speak a language other than English at home."

Millions of those Americans have relatives abroad, relatives they seldom if ever get to "see". An iPhone that allowed easy and inexpensive video iChat with those loved ones would have immeasurable market appeal.

 

[xtacyboy]

front camera

I believe the 5megapixel camera is for your normal camera, whereas the 3.2 is for the "front" camera which will allow video conferencing and an Ichat app that will support the webcam feature.

 

[cg0def]

Dude I've got an N95 8GB. Its got a 5mp Autofocus with LED flash. Sure indoor shots still don't come out that well but outdoors anytime and day shots look great. I took this while jogging downtown Denver(file is at 75% quality of original). Although the interface is nowhere near the iPhones' I have really enjoyed these features in addition to Apple.

WiFi Hot spot using edge/utms
Bluetooth/USB Tethering
FM Radio
IR Port
Two cameras both capable of live streaming to the web on 3G or WiFi
Flash camera with 30fps video auto focus, and stereo mic
BT Keyboard and and dialing support
Awesome battery life

The only problem is the N-Series will never come to full fruition in the US. in my opinion this is due to the fact that this phone can do too many things for free. Take a look at an N97.

Dude if you really think that photo looks great you need a new monitor. This is blurry the colors are off and there is vignetting all over the place. So brag all you want about n95 but I have yet to see a phone that takes good pictures. ( unfortunately )

 

[mikecap]

iFlip!

Apple is going to make Flip style cameras that communicate wirelessly with other iPhoneOS devices. That way you could hold an iPhone to the ear, and an iCam towards your face and do video chat that way. There could even be an iMovie light to perform minor editing with touchscreen controls, and it could also tie in to your iPod's music library.

 

[Aqueus]

Dude if you really think that photo looks great you need a new monitor. This is blurry the colors are off and there is vignetting all over the place. So brag all you want about n95 but I have yet to see a phone that takes good pictures. ( unfortunately )

Dude, we are only talking about a camera phone.. if you want something great for photography - you go buy a nice camera and carry it around with you all the time

Personally I think the Nokia n73 & n95's do a good job for the fact of having something which will take a decent photo on the spot.. they far out shine the iPhone hands down.. there is no need to argue over the fact that Apple let us all down in regards that

(my comments about the two Nokia's those being the ones I've tested)

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Apple is going to make Flip style cameras that communicate wirelessly with other iPhoneOS devices. That way you could hold an iPhone to the ear, and an iCam towards your face and do video chat that way. There could even be an iMovie light to perform minor editing with touchscreen controls, and it could also tie in to your iPod's music library.

Nah, they'll just do this

 

[terryzx]

I was hoping for a 5 megapixel camera in the next iPhone revision. I think a lot of people will be disappointed with 3. Having said that, I won't be particularly fussed.

my thought exactly

 

[gwangung]

You lens advocates really need to get some examples if you want to compel the public. Get a photo taken with a 1MP awesome lens camera and get a photo of the same thing (same lighting etc) taken with a 10MP crummy lens and let people be the judge.

Oh, gawd...talk to any decent photographer....

 

[jmpage2]

You lens advocates really need to get some examples if you want to compel the public. Get a photo taken with a 1MP awesome lens camera and get a photo of the same thing (same lighting etc) taken with a 10MP crummy lens and let people be the judge.

Okay, here ya go;

Review sample pictures of typical "crummy 1MP point and shoot Canon camera"

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/a30_samples.html

Most of those pictures are still better than anything you can get out of any camera phone, regardless how many "meger pixels!!" it has and this was from a crummy entry level P&S, there were 1MP cameras much better than this!

That's because it has a better lens and sensor than the camera in a phone. Look at the dark picture of the restaurant at night, and try to get a picture of that quality with your 2MP iPhone or any other camera phone for that matter.

Camera phones can't even match this one, there will be far too much blur, color will be faded, etc. Remember that these pictures have ZERO post processing done on them.

okay buh bye!

 

[BenRoethig]

sounds great to me! 3.2 in the next iphone, and 5.0 in the new apple netbook

You're not going to take a lot of pictures or shoot a lot of video with a computer. On the other hand, cell phones are quickly replacing point and shoot cameras and cheap flash camcorders.

 

[Bakey]

Dude I've got an N95 8GB. Its got a 5mp Autofocus with LED flash.

Well done you! I couldn't wait to get rid of my POS N95...

 

[Gregintosh]

No one has really brought up the possibility that these might be for new Apple Cinema Displays.

Perhaps the new 30 inchers will have a 3.2mp built in. After all it is a high end product so why wouldn't it match the performance of a high end external webcam?

I think it might be worth considering.

A 5mp iPhone though would seriously kick some ass, and I would definitely get it (if it also took decent QUALITY photos too).

 

[dieburnbot]

Maybe 5 MP on the back and 3.2 goes to the front for ichat??

Hehe, I was just about to say the exact same thing. That would be awesome.

 

[mojohojo]

behold the new apple product... the iCamera

 

[ntrigue]

MegaPixel is a marketing ploy...

3.2MP - the terminology MegaPixel can be marketed and it's for that reason Apple is installing a 3.2MP camera.

5MP - I have had perhaps 1 in 500 camera pictures that I would have liked to print 8X10.

Sensor - remember that the sensor in a low-end point-n-shoot is the size of a fingernail...it IS possible to meet that requirement.

Flash - iPhone's inferiority is most evident in low-light situations, can you say xenon?

 

[Benguitar]

I can't wait for the 10 MegaPixel iPhone camera in the next 10 years.

 

[mosx]

Amount of pixels means nothing in the face of QUALITY pixels.

Thats the problem.

People are so focused on getting a higher resolution camera in the iPhone that they tend to forget that the quality of the pixels matters more than the number of pixels. Let's not forget the fact that the lense and other optics in the camera play an equally important role.

I've seen pictures from those high resolution camera phones from Asian countries and all it really ends up being is bigger and grainier.

I'd rather have a higher quality 2MP imager in the iPhone than a similar quality (to now) higher resolution imager. What's the point in taking higher resolution pictures if it just means a bigger and grainer picture?

Apple: focus on QUALITY not resolution.

 

[gkarris]

Okay, here ya go;

Review sample pictures of typical "crummy 1MP point and shoot Canon camera"

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/a30_samples.html

Most of those pictures are still better than anything you can get out of any camera phone, regardless how many "meger pixels!!" it has and this was from a crummy entry level P&S, there were 1MP cameras much better than this!

That's because it has a better lens and sensor than the camera in a phone. Look at the dark picture of the restaurant at night, and try to get a picture of that quality with your 2MP iPhone or any other camera phone for that matter.

Camera phones can't even match this one, there will be far too much blur, color will be faded, etc. Remember that these pictures have ZERO post processing done on them.

okay buh bye!

I found the Canon P&S cameras to have the best quality and lowest noise BTW...

AFA Apple - maybe the 5 mp camera for that "high end" iPhone?

 

[Gluben]

I'm not so sure the Netbook rumours come into it.

If the other rumour about a low-end iPhone (for China and developing countries) and a high-end iPhone (for America, Canada, Europe etc.) is true, then would it not make sense to put the 3.2 MP camera in the low-end iPhone and the 5 MP in the high-end one?

Just a thought.

 

[Stately]

Exactly. Being a photographer myself, I can easily say that there is obviously no way a camera phone will ever replace a DSLR. That said, most can already replace some point and shoots. That's pretty much the point, to have a quality camera on a phone . . Apple has already done that in my opinion. They don't need to keep increasing megapixel count to harness what lay folks deem as quality. The size of the sensor can only be increased but so much, unless you want a big bulky phone and that's what really supports the amount of megapixels. I rather have a slim phone that can take decent pics. Here is a pic taken with my 1st Generation iphone. Looks decent to me. If you want pro pics you need a pro camera, not a phone.

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

It will be good to see higher resolution in the iPhone but I would have thought they would go higher than 3.2. We will see, either way will be an improvement over what it is right now.

 

[jmpage2]

Exactly. Being a photographer myself, I can easily say that there is obviously no way a camera phone will ever replace a DSLR. That said, most can already replace some point and shoots. That's pretty much the point, to have a quality camera on a phone . . Apple has already done that in my opinion. They don't need to keep increasing megapixel count to harness what lay folks deem as quality. The size of the sensor can only be increased but so much, unless you want a big bulky phone and that's what really supports the amount of megapixels. I rather have a slim phone that can take decent pics. Here is a pic taken with my 1st Generation iphone. Looks decent to me. If you want pro pics you need a pro camera, not a phone.

The composition of that picture is good, but it shows all of the problems typical of camera phones.

Blur, poor color, poor contrast, etc. The image looks faded and the detail is sub-par.

This is all typical of a camera phone. The reality is that a $99 piece of crap digital camera still takes vastly superior pictures to what can be done with ANY phone.

The Nokias that have real lenses in them have notably better camera capability than any other phone out there, including the iPhone.

Camera phones are useful as a convenience when you don't have a real camera with you, and it would be nice if they would put better lenses and flashes in them rather than play this bogus Megapixel game.

 

[Apple iKid]

As long as they improve the current phone, I will be happy. And if they dont release both of these new cameras in the iPhone at the WWDC then we will at least know that we have something else to look forward to in the future.

 

[celticgrid]

This is good news, a great addition to the iPhone would be an improved camera. I'm going to stick my neck out and say that the two sensors are for two models of phone. Good and Better levels of spec if you will. I think they'll both be similar sized but will be differentiated on price by features like this.

Personally I wouldn't feel that sort of differentiation was worth paying more money for. I hate it when faced with 'upgrades' where I'm paying for features I don't want, and I really can't see a 5.2 versus 3 factor being something many people would want - unless the general camera features were seriously enhanced to be able to make real use of that spec...