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Actually, I wonder why a 1MP Camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front. As a iPad user (I prefer my iphone actually) I think the better camera should be on the front for video conference and self portrait photos specially since photo boot presumably will make it's way to the iPad 2. Just my opinion of course.
 
I hope Apple is splitting the iPad line into two different models, one based on the current model with the same resolution and 1mp camera and a higher-end model with Retina display, SD card slot and 5mp camera. Maybe that would explain the disparity with all these rumors. Yes, wishful thinking.

Yes, very wishful thinking, and very unlikely I fear! But I have the exact same wish :) Let me have my tiny shred of hope for a retina display this year...

When the retina display finally does appear (iPad 3?) a two-model division like that seems very likely. (Like the iPhone 3GS and 4 both available now.)
 
In the digital camera world a big lcd is a plus. I can see the ipad revolutionizing and revitalizing the view camera. Think Ansel Adams. But a 1 megapixel rear cam is pretty lame. I'm kinda tired of apple's self imposed limitations on their products. Give us everything you've got the first time Apple - and then raise the bar the next round!

Personally I want an ipad with a 2tb hd, 11x17 hdscreen and a cup holder :p
 
Decoy rumor... that's all...

This is all too funny....

I'm convinced this was just put in the Beta to throw everyone off. A decoy.

It's all rumors... it's never over until the black turtle neck sings!
 
a 1 MP camera severely limits other capabilities of the iPad. First of all it means it won't have the resolution for augmented reality apps to look good, it makes bar scanning apps unreliable at best, (I remember my first gen iPhone was TERRIBLE at scanning bar codes) and most importantly it means that there's no CHANCE of a "Retina display". Pictures from a 1 MP camera would look TERRIBLE on a display with that kind of resolution.

You can wish for whatever kind of camera you want, but this statement is not true.

The iPhone 4 only captures video at 1MP, and augmented reality and barcode apps work fine. Your first gen iPhone was using stills, which are inherently less reliable for these purposes. The first iPhone to capture video, the iPhone 3gs, could capture video at 0.3MP. This is quite a step up from either.

This also in no way discounts the possibility of a Retina display (though I don't necessarily believe we will see that this gen). A 720p image won't look any worse at 2048x1536 than it would at 1024x768. In fact, it should look a little better (you can display the full horizontal dimension). When you can raw pixel double, you have an equivalent screen for low resolution content.
 
Rear Facing Camera?

The only reason for this camera is for FaceTime and Augmented Reality Apps.

I don´t see anybody complaining why do netbooks and laptops don´t have a rear facing camera.
 
My favorite part about facetime is flipping to the other camera to show people what I'm looking at. It makes video conferencing actually useful. Can I assume that all of the people in this thread suggesting that having both cameras is somehow foolish have never used facetime for more than a couple minutes?

If Apple is bringing Facetime to iPad 2 (hint, it is) there will certainly be a camera on each side (hint, there will be).

As for the resolution, 1MP seems reasonable as facetime is the important feature, but the document scanning ability and other less critical functions would be diminished at that resolution.

AR might be okay at 720p video if it can pull that off though and it could still make a great little stop motion camera, too.
 
Actually, I wonder why a 1MP Camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front. As a iPad user (I prefer my iphone actually) I think the better camera should be on the front for video conference and self portrait photos specially since photo boot presumably will make it's way to the iPad 2. Just my opinion of course.

My guess is that since FaceTime only supports VGA, they went with VGA on the front. Most video recordings would be made of other things/people, so the back camera is HD.
 
I hope its not true

I skipped the first iPad and planned to buy the 2nd gen model. If it has a 1mp camera tacked on the back for the sake of upgrading something then I'm not gonna buy it. I'd rather they improve on something else and not bother with a camera at all. I wish i had got the first ipad then skipped the 2nd gen and maybe got the 3rd gen.

I wish the iPad was apples flagship product. So far its ranking behind the ipod touch. Then if I was to buy an ipad it will already feel outdated when the iPhone 5 comes out a couple months later.
 
I still don't get why you would want a camera on a 10-inch tablet device. It may be reasonable on a 7-inch tablet, but when are you really going to whip out a 10-inch slate to take photos anywhere outside of your house? Let me just grab my tablet out of my bag to awkwardly take this photo of my family at Disney World. :confused: I don't feel like tablets are commonplace enough yet to use in the public without feeling like a douche bag and that's before even considering using a 10-inch slate to try to take a photo.

Regardless, 1 MP is weaksauce for a camera.
 
1 Megapixel is fine for a "Scanning App", which will be the purpose they push the need for.

And as long as they include an SD card slot, I'm fine with it.
 
not worth anything

So they expect people to hold up a giant ipad and take a crappy picture? My free phone from At&t has a 4mp camera. I see little (no) reason to upgrade to this version.
 
I still don't get why you would want a camera on a 10-inch tablet device. It may be reasonable on a 7-inch tablet, but when are you really going to whip out a 10-inch slate to take photos anywhere outside of your house? Let me just grab my tablet out of my bag to awkwardly take this photo of my family at Disney World. :confused: I don't feel like tablets are commonplace enough yet to use in the public without feeling like a douche bag and that's before even considering using a 10-inch slate to try to take a photo.

Regardless, 1 MP is weaksauce for a camera.

So they expect people to hold up a giant ipad and take a crappy picture? My free phone from At&t has a 4mp camera. I see little (no) reason to upgrade to this version.

No, that's exactly it. They don't expect people to want to hold up a giant iPad to take a picture. They do think (and if you remember when the last iPad came out, know) that people are screaming for FaceTime support, so they've included FaceTime cameras. And they made the back one HD like on the iPhone 4, in case you wanted to record video or use video-based apps as well.
 
The problem with this

Is that, even some of understand that it really is not a big deal to have a 1MB pixel rear camera in the next iPad, but for the average Joe (and Apple bashers) when he sees the iPad has only 1MP while Android, Windows 7 and other tablets will have 3, 5, 8 or more MP he then will go for one of those tablets thinking they´re way better because the camera is better.

Anyway I can´t see why Apple doesn´t add at least a 3MP RFC.

I really don´t care about this issue but to Apple defenders on this (and I do consider myself an Apple Fanboy), what would you say if the PlayBook, Galaxy Tab, or Zoom had only a 1MP RFC?
 
See-through iPad

My guess: There is huge potential for augmented-reality apps with the iPad, and a 1MP camera can update fast enough to keep the view fluid and smooth. A 5MP camera with a screen the size of the iPad would be laggy and less precise.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; de-de) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

harley3k said:
1 Megapixel is fine for a "Scanning App", which will be the purpose they push the need for.

And as long as they include an SD card slot, I'm fine with it.

1 MP will not suffice for scanning. At least not for OCR. Those apps suck on the iPod while doing a reasonable job on an iPhone.

And I would like to have a 2048x1536 resolution screen. That should be the minimum res of the back cam as well. Just so augmented reality apps look good!
 
For the price they want for an iPad, it should be treated like a flagship product line. A 1MP camera, no matter what its for, is not flagship, more like dinghy status.

Not to mention, WTF is up with Apple stock? It's dropped $18 a share in 3 days. Steve better get his a$$ back on the perch pronto!
 
You can wish for whatever kind of camera you want, but this statement is not true.

The iPhone 4 only captures video at 1MP, and augmented reality and barcode apps work fine. Your first gen iPhone was using stills, which are inherently less reliable for these purposes. The first iPhone to capture video, the iPhone 3gs, could capture video at 0.3MP. This is quite a step up from either.

This also in no way discounts the possibility of a Retina display (though I don't necessarily believe we will see that this gen). A 720p image won't look any worse at 2048x1536 than it would at 1024x768. In fact, it should look a little better (you can display the full horizontal dimension). When you can raw pixel double, you have an equivalent screen for low resolution content.

Thank you for having the sense to contribute something useful to this string of posts. The mega-pixel is more a marketing term than anything - and I think people forget how they actually translate to video and actual camera performance.

The truth is - whether or not this string of code even means what we think it means is yet to be known. In the meantime, sites like this are getting EXACTLY what they want - traffic for ad $$ by baiting commenters. Let's all wait until Jobs/Cook/Whoever makes the official announcement to be disappointed/happy.

:)
 
For the price they want for an iPad, it should be treated like a flagship product line. A 1MP camera, no matter what its for, is not flagship, more like dinghy status.

Not to mention, WTF is up with Apple stock? It's dropped $18 a share in 3 days. Steve better get his a$$ back on the perch pronto!

Understood. I am honestly starting to question how much longer Steve can stay with Apple without damaging the company in the eyes of the major stockholders.

Yes, people will be upset when he eventually departs - but once they see that the company can survive without him involved (ie M$) then the stock will stabilize.

Get well soon Steve, whatever the future may hold.
 
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