iPad 2 Facetime Camera is .69mp? What is Apple Thinking?!?!?!

[dgree03]

Exactly, I can't believe people think that all that it costs to make a single iPad is $180. There is way more investment and development going on here, but it doesn't matter anyway because it's about the competition as you say.

Apple has the highest profit margins in the industry. by far. And you and everyone else in apple land seem to be happy about that? Unless your a stock holder, you should feel bent!

To put upgraded cameras might only cost them $1-$4 extra over the current setup.

The Xoom is a better value when matched up against a iPad 2 3g 32gb or 64gb.

Funny to say but the one pushing innovation here in hardware isnt apple

 

[King Luis]

When will people realize that Xoom costs 799 dollars and Galaxy tab costs 599 dollars?

iPad 2 is cheaper.

I rather save 100-300 dollars and buy a nice Digital camera. Oh wait, my iPhone 4 takes better pictures than any of those.

Get out.

this.


now my opinion (which most will just skip over this message) is that megapixels isn't everything when it comes to photos. nokia's phones have very high megapixels but yet the photo's aren't that much better than say the iphone 4. also, front facing camera is mostly for video conferencing. if you had a higher mp camera the data transfer would be huge and you'd suffer from laggy video. the rear camera i don't care too much about since who's going to hold ipad up to take a picture outside? you'd just look silly doing it.

 

[Capt T]

But what happens when you see the product breakdowns that reveal the cost of a $499 iPad is only $180?

Breakdown may give an idea of parts cost but what about

Manufacturing
Shipping to multiple stores
Warehouse to keep stock
Employees at the warehouse
Employees at the store
Rental of the store space or purchase price
Phone service for mail order
Employees to get stuff shipped for mail order


Not to mention
design staff
R&D costs
Other costs we don't know about that go into making and distributing a product

 

[ghostlyorb]

Before I begin let me declare I'm buying two iPad 2's so I'm not trying to hate, but IF what we see on paper is really what we get here then the camera choices made in the iPad 2 because this just doesnt make sense.

Front Camera - VGA (640 x 480 pixels or .69MP)
Back Camera - 720p (960 x 720 pixels or 1.3MP)

The defenders will say "A camera is stupid on here anyway" but lets spit out the kool-aid for a few seconds and just consider the world in 2011.

- The Original 2007 iPhone had a 2.0MP camera. The 2011 iPad has 1.3MP

- The 2.2" Motorola Razr in 07 had a VGA camera. The 2011 9.7" iPad has a VGA camera

- Facetime was rebadged as Facetime HD and sold for $1 for HD calling yet the Face forward camera is only VGA (not even 1MP)

- The iPod Touch camera (which seems to be the one shared with iPad 2) is so low res that there is no touch Auto-Focus, only Auto-Exposure.

- No Auto-Focus is a big deal for many apps. Auto-Focus is required for scanning barcodes (barcodes exist in more places than groceries), scanning QR codes, scanning checks to do app-deposits (Chase, BoA etc) and taking clear artistic pictures.

- The latest Macbook Pro uses 1.3MP Facetime Cameras which makes FT look fantastic. These sensors ARE NOT big and would easily fit in the iPad 2 casing.

I know I'm overreacting on this but I absolutely love the iPad and that Facetime Camera is one of my big reasons for wanting to upgrade. But as it stands now then this may be yet another product that Apple intentionally crippled just so they can make a new slide next year saying "10x better than last years camera"


<end rant and apologies to those offended>

I feel your pain, but I guess it's one of those "the next model will be better and you should wait" things. I'm getting an iPad 2 because I didn't get the 1st gen. If I had a 1st gen.. iPad 2 wouldn't have enough to get me to upgrade.

 

[fertilized-egg]

Breakdown may give an idea of parts cost but what about

According to people who claim "iPad only costs $200~ for Apple," Microsoft and other software companies must be making almost 100% in profit. People, there's a difference between gross margin and operating profit.

I feel your pain, but I guess it's one of those "the next model will be better and you should wait" things. I'm getting an iPad 2 because I didn't get the 1st gen. If I had a 1st gen.. iPad 2 wouldn't have enough to get me to upgrade.

Actually it's not some devious plan to "leave things for the model." Rather it's a very simple economy: Components get cheaper as time goes along. Apple is greedy and they have a pretty tight budget under which they are trying to fit components. Next year better components will be cheaper so they throw them in.

Now the problem with cameras is that they are constrained by the law of physics. If Apple keeps aiming to make the iPad thinner still, larger optics simply cannot be fit it. I don't know if the current iPhone camera can fit in the iPad 2. If you look at the Nokia N8, which has currently the best camera among phones, it's considerably thicker than other phones because they had to accommodate the larger sensor required to get that great photo quality.

 

[dgree03]

Breakdown may give an idea of parts cost but what about

Manufacturing
Shipping to multiple stores
Warehouse to keep stock
Employees at the warehouse
Employees at the store
Rental of the store space or purchase price
Phone service for mail order
Employees to get stuff shipped for mail order


Not to mention
design staff
R&D costs
Other costs we don't know about that go into making and distributing a product

Again apple has the highest profit margins, all of what you listed doesnt matter. We know they make serious profit on almost all products.

You happy about that? Especially when you know, that competing tablets will always... always out spec an ipad?

It like paying for a kia with a bentley cover over it and paying bentley prices.

 

[Cander]

Funny to say but the one pushing innovation here in hardware isnt apple

There is nothing innovative about shoving hardware with bigger numbers into a device.

 

[fertilized-egg]

You happy about that? Especially when you know, that competing tablets will always... always out spec an ipad?

It like paying for a kia with a bentley cover over it and paying bentley prices.

Really? The facts say otherwise:

According to iSuppli, the Motorola Xoom costs $359.92 in parts to manufacture. This pricing is slightly above the $320 for a comparable 3G iPad with same 32 GB of flash memory.

So...Motorola must be ripping you off. Their $800 tablet costs $360 to make. Oh wait, the Samsung Galaxy Tab cost *less* than the iPad to make as well but I don't see you using your pitchfork on Samsung for "selling Kia for Bentley price" either.

 

[gloss]

Again apple has the highest profit margins, all of what you listed doesnt matter. We know they make serious profit on almost all products.

You happy about that? Especially when you know, that competing tablets will always... always out spec an ipad?

It like paying for a kia with a bentley cover over it and paying bentley prices.

I don't think it matters to me if the experience of using the tablet is still superior. In this particular case, I don't see the point of their spending several times as much on a better camera when 99% of the usage model for a tablet camera involves video conferencing rather than still shooting. Other manufacturers are so caught up in raw capabilities that they don't think about actually leveraging those capabilities, so you end up with more expensive hardware with a totally inferior software layer. What's the point of having, say, a 5MP camera when the video is janky and the stills are medicore? Is it really worth Apple's time to spend money on an aspect of the tablet that most people won't be using, especially if the quality's going to be crummy either way?

I think they made an accurate usage analysis and put in the hardware that would allow them to operate at a high level of quality in light of that model. People aren't going to be doing fashion shoots with this thing.

 

[Sodner]

Sorry but my iPad is not and will never be my camera. My iPhone and a Canon camera are used for that. I'll take whats in the iPad2 "camera wise" and go happily on my merry way.

Reminds me of a song............
"If you don't want an iPad 2, don't buy one. If you get one and you don't like it, bring it back."

 

[DS3]

Again apple has the highest profit margins, all of what you listed doesnt matter. We know they make serious profit on almost all products.

You happy about that? Especially when you know, that competing tablets will always... always out spec an ipad?

It like paying for a kia with a bentley cover over it and paying bentley prices.

There are mac releases where this post could be relevant. The iPad is not one of them, even remotely.

 

[Capt T]

Again apple has the highest profit margins, all of what you listed doesnt matter. We know they make serious profit on almost all products.

You happy about that? Especially when you know, that competing tablets will always... always out spec an ipad?

It like paying for a kia with a bentley cover over it and paying bentley prices.

I have no problem with what I paid for my Apple products. They suit my needs. I understand if you and others do have issues with the cost. If that is so for you, then buy from one of the other greedy companies out there. Because trust me they are making a profit too, if they aren't they won't last long.

But to say a product only costs the sum of it's parts is not correct. Apple is not making $300 profit on each 16gb iPad. there are more costs involved and post that don't take that into account are misleading. They may make more profit wise, but that is smart marketing on their part. If I am good with the price point of a product then I don't care what that company makes in profit. I care that I feel like I got a good deal. I feel that I got a great deal on my iPad as well as iPhone. They do what I need them to do and integrate well with my other apple products. Bottom line that is what matters to me.

 

[ovrlrd]

Again apple has the highest profit margins, all of what you listed doesnt matter. We know they make serious profit on almost all products.

You happy about that? Especially when you know, that competing tablets will always... always out spec an ipad?

It like paying for a kia with a bentley cover over it and paying bentley prices.

Your analogy makes no sense because the iPad is still cheaper than those other tablets with higher specs. Besides, the other tablets can't be bentleys because they can't drive you places (limited apps).

 

[Mattstkc]

Xoom has 2mp front and 5mp rear with dual led flash I believe.

Which I'd say is about on par for what people would reasonably expect in 2011

You can imagine if Apple had 2mp and 5mp and the Xoom was launched with the iPad2 camera unit. Apple fans would be ripping the hell out of the xoom for it's rotten camera's.

you're talking about video conferencing that works on WiFi (Facetime) and 3G (jailbroken Facetime and Skype and prob others now). Who the hell needs to video conference in HD anyways? 1, the quality wouldn't last, the lag would be epic unless you have awesome internet always, and why would you want to? the back camera is good enough for 720P video, i mean unless you're blowing up your pictures to 18X24 there's no need for anything bigger especially in a tablet form factor

 

[wratran]

Worth bearing in mind that megapixels don't necessarily equate to image quality. It's the size of the sensor that counts. This can't be stated enough.

Excellent point....megapixel is a marketing gimmick

Take my Iphone 4 gazillion pixels vs my old, old, old Nikon digital SLR at 2mp.....Nikon wins hands-down.

 

[Mattstkc]

Your analogy makes no sense because the iPad is still cheaper than those other tablets with higher specs. Besides, the other tablets can't be bentleys because they can't drive you places (limited apps).

I love how you say it's an analogy that makes no sense but then continue it on.

BTW other tablets aren't Bentleys, they're Hummers; big, shiny, expensive, beautiful, fully loaded, and for 90% of the population, completely pointless to own.

 

[darngooddesign]

Excellent point....megapixel is a marketing gimmick

Take my Iphone 4 gazillion pixels vs my old, old, old Nikon digital SLR at 2mp.....Nikon wins hands-down.

Yet the iPhone 4's camera is better than the iPhone 2G's.

 

[andiwm2003]

can the camera be limited by the thickness of the iPad? Not enough distance between lens and chip so they needed a smaller chip. So in order to not make the sensor elements too small and cause noise the opted for less pixels?

 

[wombat94]

Do apps like scanning codes or the bank ones absolutely require autofocus, or is it just more difficult to get it to work without it?

I can't speak to all scanning apps (or to the bank deposit apps) but autofocus is very helpful to them in general.

I'm developing an internal scanning app for my company and most of the UPC scanning libraries at least partly support the iPod touch 4G fixed focus camera. It is not a easy or quick to scan with that camera as it is with the autofocus cameras in the iPhone 3GS and 4G.

We are also considering the iPad for some applications and as long as the rear facing camera is as good as the iPod touch 4G, we should be okay. It's not the best, but its passable. Even in our corporate application, the scanning will be a useful secondary function - not a critical path requirement.

A better camera would be nice, but if it comes with an increased cost that could be a problem.

It's true that Apple needs to consider the cost of a $5 enhancement across 20,000,000 devices, but corporate customers are even more sensitive to price increases than individual consumers. The iPad has the potential to be a huge success in service industry application (and it is already leading the way there)... if a company needs to buy 5000, 10000 or more iPads a $5 to $10 per unit price increase quickly can become a budget problem.

 

[fertilized-egg]

Yet the iPhone 4's camera is better than the iPhone 2G's.

The megapixel is the last thing responsible for that. The iPhone 4 camera has gained, since the iPhone 2G,

- Autofocus
- Larger physical sensor area
- Better sensor tech with less signal to noise ratio
- Presumably better image processing power

iPhone camera could've had less than 1 megapixel and still would've taken pictures much better than iPhone 2G's.

I can't speak to all scanning apps (or to the bank deposit apps) but autofocus is very helpful to them in general.

Same here. Some barcode readers work OK on my iPod Touch 4G's fixed focus camera, but the reading is sooo much easier when I try it out on phones with AF camera.

 

[dgree03]

I don't think it matters to me if the experience of using the tablet is still superior. In this particular case, I don't see the point of their spending several times as much on a better camera when 99% of the usage model for a tablet camera involves video conferencing rather than still shooting. Other manufacturers are so caught up in raw capabilities that they don't think about actually leveraging those capabilities, so you end up with more expensive hardware with a totally inferior software layer. What's the point of having, say, a 5MP camera when the video is janky and the stills are medicore? Is it really worth Apple's time to spend money on an aspect of the tablet that most people won't be using, especially if the quality's going to be crummy either way?

I think they made an accurate usage analysis and put in the hardware that would allow them to operate at a high level of quality in light of that model. People aren't going to be doing fashion shoots with this thing.

Your assuming that a 5mp camera on competitor tablets is "janky" when we KNOW the ipad camera(if it uses the same exact one on the Ipod touch) is terrible.

Really? The facts say otherwise:



So...Motorola must be ripping you off. Their $800 tablet costs $360 to make. Oh wait, the Samsung Galaxy Tab cost *less* than the iPad to make as well but I don't see you using your pitchfork on Samsung for "selling Kia for Bentley price" either.

Actually since motorola has to sell ALLLLL of its products in third party stores, it eats into its profits. Unlike apple who can sell direct from an apple store and online(moto does finally have an online store.)

To add, that component cost for the xoom doesnt include the free hardware upgrade that is coming for 4g LTE. nice try buddy.


Also lets look at your math shall we??

Ipad(first gen) 3g 32gb cost apple $287.15 sells for $729
Xoom 4g 32gb Cost moto $359.92 sell for $799


Ipad first gen 3g 32gb has a profit of $441.85
Xoom 4g 32gb has a profit of $440

So they are virtually even but xoom uses higher speced items and include 4g, sdhc, hdmi(without dongle) 5mp back cam and 2mp.

 

[canyonblue737]

Cost is clearly a factor BUT NOT THE ONLY ONE.

The iPhone 4 rear camera has dimensions measured by iFixit that DO NOT FIT in the slimmer case of the iPod Touch OR the new iPad 2. Apple does not feel, likely correctly, that the iPad 2 rear camera will be used often for photos or even recorded video so the need for a higher res, bigger, more expensive camera is outweighed by the need to keep the cost down, and create a thinner and lighter iPad. What is the #1 reason to use the rear camera on an iPad? Facetime. Facetime doesn't need more than 720p.

 

[Mechinyun]

There is a no rational argument that this is not complete weak sauce from apple.

The specs on those cameras are pathetic.

End of story.

 

[fertilized-egg]

...
Actually since motorola has to sell ALLLLL of its products in third party stores, it eats into its profits. Unlike apple who can sell direct from an apple store and online(moto does finally have an online store.)
...

So we have to give Moto a break since they don't have the same efficiency in their retail channel? Why? Also if Apple's selling tablets at that high of a price, how come I don't see any $500 tablet with the specs like Apple's?

The specs on those cameras are pathetic.

End of story.

Oh that I can absolutely agree. The cameras will most likely be terrible.

 

[Compile 'em all]

But when 2 of Apple's selling features are the presence of front and back cameras, doesn't the fact that they are not as good a camera as those in the $199 iPhone 4 give you pause?

You must not know a lot about Apple then. Apple never sold their products because of "features". People need to realize that Apple sells an experience. The iPad is simply fun to use. It is beautiful, thin, and above all...works. All this talk about MP and Mhz is really irrelevant. No one goes into an Apple store and ask how much "RAMs" the iPad has. They go in, pinch and zoom, hold it in their hands and look at it from each and every way, smile, then go to the cashier.