iPad will have a rear facing camera for one reason...FaceTime. It is very convenient to switch to rear facing camera when on a FT call so that you can show somebody something. If you have to use the front one, and turn the phone around, you cannot see the screen and therefore cannot see what you are aiming the camera at. Any one who has used facetime on an iphone 4 knows this. This is the sole reason they will add a rear camera. Mark my words. Take it to the bank
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Flash......... No, not that type of Flash !
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Apple usually goes their own way.
I cannot see the main reason for Apple to include a camera in the iPad, being that the "competition" ships with one or two.
I would rather have one device that does one thing good, than one that does more worse.
I cannot see the main reason for Apple to include a camera in the iPad, being that the "competition" ships with one or two.
I would rather have one device that does one thing good, than one that does more worse.
So you don't have a smartphone then?
A poor phone, with a poor camera and poor music playback quality via a poor speaker with poor battery life?
You could have a very good basic phone.
A really nice quality camera
Something played back non compressed audio files
some proper 3 way speaker units
and of course enough battery power to last long enough not to have to worry about recharging all the time
So, in the case of the iPad, what exactly is the one thing that "you" think it is "supposed" to do?
For me, I'd like to have the thing that I happen to have in my hand be able to do what I need to do at the time.
I've yet to hear any example of how having a rear facing camera in the iPad will diminish it's functionality ---- it just seems to clash with some folks conventional ideas of how things ought to be done ...
Everyone is comparing Apple to all of these other companies. Saying things like "Since the Galaxy Tab has Cameras, and all of the other tabs have Cameras, the iPad must have Cameras". It's certainly possible, buuut let's take a look back in ten years of iDevice history.
FM Radio, expandable memory and video playback are mp3 player industry standards. ESPECIALLY the former two. Nearly every mid-to-high-range mp3 player has ALL THREE. If your going to spend more than $30 on an mp3 player (and sometimes even the real cheapies) you'll have an SD micro slot, and an FM radio. I bought a $25 mp3 player at Best Buy for a steal-your-neighbors-gift Christmas game, it has 4GB of internal storage, a micro SD slot, FM radio, and a small color screen (no video).
Only NOW do we have video playback on the VERY expensive iPods, and FM Radio and expandability will likely NEVER happen. With the Tablets, they are competing with very similarly priced devices. If they could dominate, change and control the market (lots of people call ALL mp3 players iPods, similar to Jell-O for any gelatin, etc.) The point I'm making there is, if they can dominate the market with the under-featured, higher-priced device (Don't use the iTunes excuse, I've used iTunes since it's inception and my first 'iPod' is my iPhone 4. I've always used off the shelf mp3 players). I imagine they can dominate the tablet market even without adding features that are expected. They know what they are doing, nobody should be questioning the company that can sell ice to an eskimo, convince them they need that ice and all other ice is no good, and that that particular ice can do anything even when it can't!
(Granted, I LOVE my iPad, but the iPods I never was a big fan of. They were cool, but I could get a similarly sized zune for cheaper, or a flash storage mp3 player with SD or SD Micro slots to continually add storage, and still sync it with iTunes.)
-John
FM Radio, expandable memory and video playback are mp3 player industry standards. ESPECIALLY the former two. Nearly every mid-to-high-range mp3 player has ALL THREE. If your going to spend more than $30 on an mp3 player (and sometimes even the real cheapies) you'll have an SD micro slot, and an FM radio. I bought a $25 mp3 player at Best Buy for a steal-your-neighbors-gift Christmas game, it has 4GB of internal storage, a micro SD slot, FM radio, and a small color screen (no video).
Only NOW do we have video playback on the VERY expensive iPods, and FM Radio and expandability will likely NEVER happen. With the Tablets, they are competing with very similarly priced devices. If they could dominate, change and control the market (lots of people call ALL mp3 players iPods, similar to Jell-O for any gelatin, etc.) The point I'm making there is, if they can dominate the market with the under-featured, higher-priced device (Don't use the iTunes excuse, I've used iTunes since it's inception and my first 'iPod' is my iPhone 4. I've always used off the shelf mp3 players). I imagine they can dominate the tablet market even without adding features that are expected. They know what they are doing, nobody should be questioning the company that can sell ice to an eskimo, convince them they need that ice and all other ice is no good, and that that particular ice can do anything even when it can't!
(Granted, I LOVE my iPad, but the iPods I never was a big fan of. They were cool, but I could get a similarly sized zune for cheaper, or a flash storage mp3 player with SD or SD Micro slots to continually add storage, and still sync it with iTunes.)
-John
Companies like Google (and I think Apple) have all this new stuff they are trying to push out where you hold your phone up to a sign, business, etc, and then using the camera, gps, or whatever, it cover the image with data and information in real time about what you are point your device at.
I see the talented person who put a lot of time into creating this possible design also felt that there would naturally be a flash unit on the rear for the Camera lens:
https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=265590&d=1293550529
I'm still wondering about this, and still find it unbelievable that Apple would set themselves up for a fall in almost every review of iPad2 which complains about the lack of a flash unit despite almost every modern camera phone, even cheap ones having some type of flash unit.
I understand, to some degree Apple may not care what the competition does, but that should not mean leaving out an obvious thing.
Perhaps all these case designs are fake?
https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=265590&d=1293550529
I'm still wondering about this, and still find it unbelievable that Apple would set themselves up for a fall in almost every review of iPad2 which complains about the lack of a flash unit despite almost every modern camera phone, even cheap ones having some type of flash unit.
I understand, to some degree Apple may not care what the competition does, but that should not mean leaving out an obvious thing.
Perhaps all these case designs are fake?
Sure I have a smartphone but is it the best in everything it does? No, it isn't.
The iPhone 4 is far from perfect. But that doesn't matter in this discussion.
I was merely pointing out that Apple doesn't look at the competition and say they have to cram more features in a certain device but that they look at them and say, we can do that better, with less or more features.
Well, what makes the iPad interesting is that it does one thing good at the time. You should read about Jef Raskin, a brilliant human-computer interface expert (who actually worked for Apple) and his thoughts about the information appliance, which is exactly what the iPad /iPhone / iPod Touch is today.
I agree with this.
Just because they can, doesn't mean they will. Besides, the camera will under most circumstances be utter crap.
I think it should feature a front facing camera for iChat (I kid, I mean FaceTime of course).
Thanks for the link .... But it seems to say that the iPad should have a rear facing camera to be a good information appliance:
"He saw touch interfaces, however, and realized that maybe, if the buttons and information display were all in the software, he could create a morphing information appliance. Something that could do every single task imaginable perfectly, changing mode according to your objectives. Want to make a call? The whole screen would change to a phone, and buttons will appear to dial or select a contact. Want a music player or a GPS or a guitar tuner or a drawing pad or a camera or a calendar or a sound recorder or whatever task you can come up with? No problem: Just redraw the perfect interface on the screen, specially tailored for any of those tasks. So easy that people would instantly get it."
The iPad currently stands out from the iPhone and Touch for it's lack of cameras.
What would be really neat, would be to open up to third party expandability. USB Webcams for example (If it worked on the iPad, I guarantee there would be hundreds of iPad specific webcams, that clamped on to it or whatever) for Facetime. (But then, Apple would have to admit it didn't invent the webcam er... I mean iChat um.. facetime, skype?). Although, as closed as Apple has made this device it's not likely, though they do boast pretty heavily about "The thousands of iPod accesories for the dock connector" (And 99.9% of them do music playback. The other .1% is a third party charger.)
Truthfully though, we're gonna have to wait and see. If history repeats itself, we're all already wrong. First gen iPad rumors crack me up "Two USB ports" "Special version of OSX" "Dual cameras"
-John