one more thing ... the iCam!
The upcoming MacWorld Expo 2006 is in deed going to be interesting to follow here at the MacRumors this time around. Expectations are high for new product announcements in most parts of the Mac-community all over the world. What's it gonna be then? IntelMacs? iWeb? Widescreen iBooks?
But still ... somehow the rumourmill has been strangely dull this time, don't you think? If we can't get our kicks from "confirmed reports from reliable sources" this time, how about we add a splash of adrenaline before the Stevenote speech with wild guesses and pure speculation? *s*
I penned this little piece in a mood of equal measures of cool reasoning and desperate longing for real excitement prior to this MacWorld Expo 2006 . Remember .... I am NOT an insider. I know nooothing!
However - wet dreams are dutyfree still, so here we go:
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PREDICTING THE iCAM
Here’s a prediction: Apple will release a brandnew hardware product, that will redefine the market much the same way the iPod did in the music business. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome: The iCam.
Just think about it. What’s the missing piece in Apple’s digital hub strategy in this day and hour? Well, they’ve got the music covered on all fronts, right from content creation (GarageBand) through desktop playback and organizing (iTunes), online music sale (iTMS), and last but not least they’ve been hugely succesfull in the portable musicplayer business with the iPod of course. With a very strong dominance in terms of marketshare in both online music sale, as well as in portable players Apple has effectively reached its goal in that market already. The sources to further expansion in the music business are starting to dry up, and Apple is not not known to rest on its laurels.
So, which other growing market could Apple be looking at next with all this in mind? Well, what other digital media market is there out there which is booming these years, and already seems perfectly cut out for Apple to enter at this time? .... The digital photo and video market of course!
The market for digital cameras, both stillcameras and video, is quite possibly the only one exceeding the portable musicplayer market. While the iPod aims squarely at a costumer segment of young people, consumers in all agegroups can see the need for an easy to use camera to capture pictures and video of their holidays and grandchildren etc.
And Apple have already paved the way in terms of software! iPhoto for your digital pictures, and iMovie for your homevideos, and syncing with .Mac to easily publish your finished masterpieces with Homepage. They’ve even got the portable picture+video player in place with the new video iPod. So what’s missing in the puzzle? The Apple-branded hardware for creating your photos and video of course!
So how could Apple make an entry into the already well established market for digital cameras that would cause a stir in the industry? Simply by repeating the lessons learned from their highly succesfull music strategy. Take wellknown technology from an existing market, wrap it up in a sleek and cool design a la iPod, and make a superior user interface for seamless integration with the (existing) Apple software for editing and sharing, and there you have it: The iCam. But, there’s one more thing ...
What could really make the iCam stand out from the rest? Well, we already have digital cameras that can do video. But not very well. And we already have DV-camcorders that can record still shots. But not very well.
How about a harddrive-based camera the size of an iPod that does BOTH equally well? Pristine quality photos AND video in a 2-in-1 pocketsized camera?
Harddrive-based consumer camcorders are only beginning to show up on the market these days, and all their virtues untold, their performance and easy of use leave plenty of room for improvement for a company with Apple’s flair for design and user experience. How about an iCam that can record natively in H.264 encoded MPEG 4 format? Yes, we’re talking real HD-video in a consumer camera here. Automatically syncs through FireWire to your iMovie HD software, which - surprise surprise - is already prepared for handling HD video material as is. Ever wondered why? If so you’re not alone. Many observers we’re baffled to see Apple introduce HD-capabilities in their otherwise very basic iApp for the average consumer. Why would Apple make iMovie HD-savy at a time when even the entry level HD-cameras are still expensive high end items for the semipro world? The planned release of the iCam is a pretty good guess why.
Pocketsized videorecorders already exist in the shape of digital stillcameras and even mobile phones with the ability to shoot grainy and jittering little clips in 320X160 or, at best, VGA resolution. ( Let’s not even begin to talk about soundquality or sharpness). These existing devices have videocapability more as a gimmick, than anything you would seriously rely on for your wedding video. Apple could change that with the iCam.
The iCam could merge the digital camera and the digital videocamcorder and become the first serious all-in-one digital camera “for the rest of us”. And we all know Apple’s flair for elegant and simple all-in-one solutions, right?
Take Apple´s succes with the iPod, add in the overall digital hub strategy when it comes to handling digital media content, and take a look at the present lineup of software in the iLife suite, and I can only come to one logical conclusion: The iCam is coming.
First Apple managed to “make a dent in the universe” of digital music with the iPod. Coming up next; digital photo and video! And of course Apple will want to deliver the camera-equivalent to the iPod, which is The iCam.
MacWorld Expo 2006 coming up very soon. None of us know if Steve Jobs is going to surprise us with a completely new product this time. Neither do I.
But from a logical and business-strategic point of view it appears to me that the time is due for Apple to introduce just “one more thing” ... The iCam®
Garion (Denmark)
Oh i hope!
