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Joanna Stern and John Gruber Discuss Apple M1 Transition and 'Craptastic' 720p FaceTime Cameras

maxfromdenmark said:
I would be more than happy with the same front camera like in the latest iPhones.
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You and everyone else 🙂

The problem is that Apple would have to use a much thicker lid to use that iPhone camera.

Engineering tradeoffs are part of the design of every consumer electronics device. In their opinion, Apple thinks more people would be satisfied by a thin lid with worse camera performance than a thicker lid with better camera.

There are dozens of those tradeoffs made before any product is finalized. Sometimes they make the wrong call, but usually not imo.
 
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PickUrPoison said:
If you’re ok with a 5-6mm lid, you can have that in some other brand I’m sure.

Most of Apple’s customers, like Apple, don’t want to make the trade off of thicker lid for a better camera. It’s that simple.
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Let's be clear: The claim that "most of Apple's customers" don't want to make a tradeoff is apparently your opinion, and not based on data. You're also simply assuming they can't make a higher quality camera in less space, something I don't believe is substantiated after reading the other comments and looking at Apple's hardware in other devices. Either way, I would make that trade-off for a high quality camera.
 
citysnaps said:
Well...why don't you find and purchase a laptop that sports the camera you want. Easy.
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If your solution as a business is to tell your customers they are better served by direct competitors, then you're failing. These are devices with luxury prices. Yes I do have standards and will consider alternatives.
 
Enlightened Doggo said:
If your solution as a business is to tell your customers they are better served by direct competitors, then you're failing. These are devices with luxury prices. Yes I do have standards and will consider alternatives.
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That is not Apple's solution, but merely my suggestion so you'll find laptop happiness. Godspeed in your quest.

Personally I'm fine with my laptop's camera. And would not want a thicker laptop. You may not be aware that product design and engineering is about managing a set of often conflicting product objectives, where compromise is often required.

If you can find a suitably thin laptop camera at a decent price, please contact Apple and let them know.
 
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Yojimbo007 said:
She is absolutely exaggerating .... sure 1080 will be better but does Gruber‘s live stream on M1 look inferior to her’s?
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He was brightly lit. I have the same camera (without the software wizardry, as it's the early-2020 Air) and it works great on a bright day or a well lit office/room. In the evening with subdued lighting it's unusable. But that's fine - I use my phone then.
 
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citysnaps said:
That is not Apple's solution, but merely my suggestion so you'll find laptop happiness. Godspeed in your quest.

Personally I'm fine with my laptop's camera. And would not want a thicker laptop. You may not be aware that product design and engineering is about managing a set of often conflicting product objectives, where compromise is often required.

If you can find a suitably thin laptop camera at a decent price, please contact Apple and let them know.
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It has not been substantiated that this is even a trade-off that exists, only that you and one or two other commenters don't know how to accomplish it. Fans in the comments here seem convinced Apple cannot do better than this objectively bad camera, which is very strange to me considering that they seem to hold them in such high regard.
 
Enlightened Doggo said:
It has not been substantiated that this is even a trade-off that exists, only that you and one or two other commenters don't know how to accomplish it. Fans in the comments here seem convinced Apple cannot do better than this objectively bad camera, which is very strange to me considering that they seem to hold them in such high regard.
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As an electrical engineer (I'm assuming you're one - correct me if I'm wrong), have you ever designed a hardware product where certain requirements, constraints, and goals were imposed? There are always tradeoffs and they are usually multi-dimensional.


"only that you and one or two other commenters don't know how to accomplish it."

Well, OK, feel free to weigh in with your recommendation for a camera/sensor recommendation and design that would work. And please take a look at Post #43 where an engineer who designs camera/sensors for phones and laptops weighed in. That'll give you a good head start. Should be easy for you.
 
Enlightened Doggo said:
Let's be clear: The claim that "most of Apple's customers" don't want to make a tradeoff is apparently your opinion, and not based on data. You're also simply assuming they can't make a higher quality camera in less space, something I don't believe is substantiated after reading the other comments and looking at Apple's hardware in other devices. Either way, I would make that trade-off for a high quality camera.
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Not sure what other cameras in other Apple devices you think are 2-3mm thick and higher quality. There aren’t any.

Anyway, I think Apple knows a little more about what their customer base wants than you. You know what you want, but Apple does a ton of market research on their entire customer base. Apple can’t make everyone happy, no one can. They try to find the best compromise.

But if you want to think more than half of Apple’s customers want a significantly thicker lid just so the webcam can be better, feel free. I don’t think you could be more wrong 🤷‍♂️
 
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Enlightened Doggo said:
You're also simply assuming they can't make a higher quality camera in less space, something I don't believe is substantiated after reading the other comments and looking at Apple's hardware in other devices.
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The iMac Pro has a slightly better camera, but it's also a significantly fatter device.

The iPhone has a way better camera, but the camera module alone is ~7mm, whereas a MacBook's is ~2mm.
 
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citysnaps said:
As an electrical engineer (I'm assuming you're one - correct me if I'm wrong), have you ever designed a hardware product where certain requirements, constraints, and goals were imposed? There are always tradeoffs and they are usually multi-dimensional.


"only that you and one or two other commenters don't know how to accomplish it."

Well, OK, feel free to weigh in with your recommendation for a camera/sensor recommendation and design that would work. And please take a look at Post #43 where an engineer who designs camera/sensors for phones and laptops weighed in. That'll give you a good head start. Should be easy for you.
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I appreciate what you're trying to do, but after a while, you just have to realize that some people just can't swallow a reasonable explanation, and the only thing you're doing is hurting yourself by wasting time with them.

What I find fascinating is that people take so much for granted, as if a regular 2.25X improvement in resolution is some kind of birthright. Will it happen? Of course it will! Will it take a lot of pain and money to make possible, given the constraints? MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF PAIN AND MONEY.

I know, I've been there. For a small company, hundreds of millions of dollars in investments, over a decade of time, fundamental process improvements, new chemistry, months upon months of working 110 hour weeks, sacrifices, you name it. And heaven forbid if it doesn't show up quickly, lest some internet fart with a dog avatar (or the equivalent in "tech journalist") sneer at you.

Don't worry people, improvements (most probably, I don't work at Apple...) are coming, (I'm guessing) whenever they re-do the laptop lid design. They have to create a way of getting 2.25X the data from the camera down to the motherboard. They need to pull a rabbit out of the hat and figure out how to make better optics in that limited space (to compensate for 2.25X less light per pixel), and/or get a sensor that's 2.25X more sensitive, and/or sensor technology that can handle simpler, flatter optics. Or make a deeper lid. (You never know, supposedly new display tech like mini/micro LED backlighting may cause major changes, and new trade-offs for everyone.)

It all can be done, it is just a pain. In the meantime you got a massive win with the M1 chip, which also was a life-consuming and expensive pain to produce, SO BE HAPPY. If the gripers would try creating such improvements themselves, they might gain some perspective.
 
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I think there’s an underlying sexism in this video… the moment Joanna Stern made a fundamental criticism about the 720p camera, it went entirely unacknowledged by the interviewers/producers and the topic was immediately changed to an irrelevant question using vertical buzzwords. Joanna was ignored, except by John Gruber who interjected that he was using the 720p camera.

The producers should have—at that moment—switched to a full screen comparison of Joanna beside John. Instead we only ever see them beside each other on a projected screen from a distance, so we can’t make a direct comparison of quality.

However, Joanna has long hair and when she moved her head you can see the hairs moving with a high quality of detail—and I’ll reiterate—during movement. John has nothing with dynamic movement in his video stream, and his hair is short so that it doesn’t move freely. Due to streaming video compression, the less movement in an image produces a less challenging compression computation and results in a video quality that’s closer to raw 720p. Joanna’s hair would likely have blurred during movement on the 720p camera.

People who say John looked better are grasping at straws, because again, it was not a proper comparison.

I’m still angered by the blatant ignoring of Joanna’s important criticism.

I was also surprised at how much John Gruber sounded more like an advertiser than a critic. I expected more from such a big name amongst Apple critics and reviewers.
 
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Seanm87 said:
Are you kidding? Phones are WAY thicker than a MacBook lid. Imagine closing your MacBook with a 7-8mm lid lol.
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compare the camera thickness of iPhones and the MacBook lids. You don't need to cram the entire phone to the MacBook lid.
 
Enlightened Doggo said:
Let's be clear: The claim that "most of Apple's customers" don't want to make a tradeoff is apparently your opinion, and not based on data. You're also simply assuming they can't make a higher quality camera in less space, something I don't believe is substantiated after reading the other comments and looking at Apple's hardware in other devices. Either way, I would make that trade-off for a high quality camera.
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Then Apple is not the company for you. They focus on elegant design instead of chunky high spec options. If you want a chunky laptop instead of a more elegant design there are plenty of windows options out there.
 
PickUrPoison said:
Not sure what other cameras in other Apple devices you think are 2-3mm thick and higher quality. There aren’t any.

Anyway, I think Apple knows a little more about what their customer base wants than you. You know what you want, but Apple does a ton of market research on their entire customer base. Apple can’t make everyone happy, no one can. They try to find the best compromise.

But if you want to think more than half of Apple’s customers want a significantly thicker lid just so the webcam can be better, feel free. I don’t think you could be more wrong 🤷‍♂️
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Repeating an opinion over and over doesn't make it a fact. It is your opinion that you know what other Apple customers want. It is a fact that Apple can create better sensors.
 
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
Objectively? That's your opinion.

I find it more than adequate for my video conferencing needs. So, in my opinion, it's more than good enough. :)
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The fact that Apple creates 5k screens and 4k HDR cameras is not an opinion. It is also a fact that virtually no new screens on the laptop market are 720p, if any at all. It is outdated. Period.
 
Enlightened Doggo said:
The fact that Apple creates 5k screens and 4k HDR cameras is not an opinion. It is also a fact that virtually no new screens on the laptop market are 720p, if any at all. It is outdated. Period.
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That's a nice straw man you're building, there. It was the camera you "objectively" said was updated, we're not talking about the screens. :)

I think you may be confusing "objectively" and "subjectively". Subjectively - ie. in my opinion - the camera is good enough.
 
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
That's a nice straw man you're building, there. It was the camera you "objectively" said was updated, we're not talking about the screens. :)

I think you may be confusing "objectively" and "subjectively". Subjectively - ie. in my opinion - the camera is good enough.
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It's pretty obvious that you are being disingenuous. Not sure who you think you are fooling here by pretending Apple's 4k HDR camera is not objectively better than grainy 720p. Take it easy, bub.
 
Enlightened Doggo said:
It's pretty obvious that you are being disingenuous. Not sure who you think you are fooling here by pretending Apple's 4k HDR camera is not objectively better than grainy 720p. Take it easy, bub.
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Well, if you can fit that 4K HDR camera in the lid of any of Apple's current laptops, then I think Apple needs you in their R&D department. :)
 
Enlightened Doggo said:
Repeating an opinion over and over doesn't make it a fact. It is your opinion that you know what other Apple customers want. It is a fact that Apple can create better sensors.
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You’ve misunderstood my posts. I didn’t say I know what other Apple customers want. I said Apple does. Apple knows what their customer base wants. That’s the whole purpose of market research, and Apple does a TON of it.

It’s amusing to see you accuse me of thinking I know what customers want, when you’re the one who’s actually projecting your personal wish onto Apple’s customer base as a whole 🤣
 
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