Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I dont think people want to replace their DSLR with iPhone or even need photo more than 5MP. BUT increasing the quality of the image sensor is really needed. iPhone 4 gives good picture. lets expect iphone 5 takes even better quality, less noise, more sensitive to low light.


I totally agree, my wife's 4 has image quality that is leaps and bounds above my 8MP android phone.
 
Thinner

Isn't the obsession with being ever "thinner" a treatable medical condition?

Isn't it related to "binge and purge"?

Apple has been binging on iToys while purging functionality and common sense design across all their products.

Fast Forward - Introducing the new white i<fill in the blank>, even if the unreplaceable battery dies, you can still shave with it. ;)
 
This is brilliant news. Though geeky--hearing about the newer, thinner, faster, stronger, more compressed bits and pieces-- it means greater possibilities coming soon.

Thinner, in this case, does not handcuff power. It enables that room to be used for something else.

THANK YOU... can't believe it took nearly the whole first page for someone to say it. Thinner is fine, but when the components get thinner, the insides can be filled with MORE POWER. Who would whine about reduction of parts?? Sheesh.
 
I'd hate to see Apple go back to a 3MP camera.

Agreed. 3PM is ideal for me, though I’m OK with the current 5MP since the iPhone 4 camera’s optics do deliver good results.
The importance of a cameras optics can not be underestimated!!! It is the optics that resolve the image, flattens the field and controls coloration. I've already seen to many comments here about the sensor resolution here which I believe is a mistake. The system, that is the sensor and optics have to work together.
But let’s not climb towards 8MP and beyond! More MP often means a worse image (greater noise even when scaled down later) not better.
At a given technology node yes. However technology does move forward. I'd rather that Apple not randomly update a camera system until the technology has surpassed what is currently implemented.

In other words if they came up with an 8MP camera that performed better than the current one I'd be all over it. In the end if you can leverage them more pixels are better. It is really no different than using slow speed film of the past to avoid the lumpiness of high speed film.
It’s a marketing number akin to the old GHz.
Not really. Marketing has simplified the discussion for idiots but for people who understand what they are doing it is an important number. The problem with cell phone cameras is that the optics have to be up to the task at hand. Actually a lot of so called pro DSLRs suffer from poor optics these days.
Reading a number in a bullet list is fun... but not fun enough to make my photo library 40% bigger, slower, and more expensive! I care about image quality more than bullet points.

Honestly this is the first time I've seen somebody complain about image file size while at the same time professing a desire for image quality. More data generally means better image quality, even from the same sensor. That is why so many people these days shoot RAW and do the JPEG (or whatever) conversion themselves. Over compression in an effort to save space leads to information lost.

As to sensors, more MP is more information. The quality of that information is very important, which of course is where cell phone cameras have historically failed. I'm just not willing to reject a higher MP camera out of hand until I see what sort of results it produces. I'm optimistic because I know there is a massive amount of R&D going into cell phone camera tech.

In the end if this is a thin camera destined for the Touch who really cares if the quality is lower than the iPhone? Let's face it Touch is the very lowest end of the iOS lineup. Given a choice I'd like to see a zoom on the iPhone camera anyway. Given suitable optics a zoom will give you more options with respect to producing the image you desire. Frankly a bigger aperture would go a long way to improving cell phone cameras too.
 
Strange issue to have.

Agreed. Thats the only issue I have with my iPad2.

IMHO, it wasn't incapability that forced Apple's hands in giving it such ***** cameras...rather laziness and perceived acceptability ("folks wont know the difference" attitude).
Actually I think they made the right move with the cameras on iPad2. The camera is good enough for the task at hand. Anything more would have lead to expenses no body was willing to pay for. Believe me you are in a very very tiny minority if you believe that people see iPad as a photography device.
Sorry, but I'm tired of my "magical" FaceTime calls looking like Monet Paintings.

And you blame that on the camera? Could be but there is a far greater chance that the artifacts are coming from image compression and other realtime issues.
 
We need a good Camera in the iPhone

About 90% of the people I know with smart phones, specially iPhones not only uses it also as a camera but rather yet instead of a camera (lets things to carry and always ready).

Taking any camera quality, whichever it is, out of the iPhone would be a huge mistake that I bet the other smart/camera phone makers are waiting for Apple to make.:apple:
 
As long as this means the next iPod touch has a better camera for still pictures. The current one sucks.
 
Actually I think they made the right move with the cameras on iPad2. The camera is good enough for the task at hand. Anything more would have lead to expenses no body was willing to pay for. Believe me you are in a very very tiny minority if you believe that people see iPad as a photography device.


And you blame that on the camera? Could be but there is a far greater chance that the artifacts are coming from image compression and other realtime issues.

Photography device? You didnt get my point at all. The cameras SUCK for the very purpose Apple is touting them for: FaceTime.
Do you have an iPad2? If so, go to photo booth and look at yourself via the front facing camera. The image is mediocre at best and utterly fails in low light environments (and I mean dim, not dark). This is not a compression issue, or related to bandwidth (no network reliance here). They plain and simple suck. And please dont be one of those who really believe that iP4 quality cameras would result in noticeable consumer incurred expenses...These components are COTS, and have been massed produced for a year now...the cost difference would be negligible. Now heres a crazy idea, why not Apple incur that extra $3.59 for a device theyre selling at $499.00 and making a healthy profit margin on?
Im not asking for an 8MP rear camera for heavens sake...and yes, the iPad photo lunnies are just that.
But, this whole "oh its fine, and Apple made the right decision here" argument is utter nonsense. It's just like the 2011 13" MBP owners who rationalize Apple's huge mistake of keeping the 1280x800 display (instead of matching the older 13" MBA's 1400x900), by saying "You folks complaining are morons, 1280x800 is just fine...stop bitching about what you dont need".

Call a spade a spade people, nobody is saying that your kid is ugly.
 
Once you get into the 10 mm pocketable range, a millimeter here or there makes less and less of a difference. The human hand and the size of our trouser pockets are the constants.

I'd rather have a bigger battery, better camera, and/or sturdier frame than shave down from 9mm to 7 mm.

You could not be more wrong. This thinner it is, the more a mm makes a difference. 9mm to 7mm is over a 20% reduction. But 16mm to 14mm would be less of a difference (% wise)
 
Now if the iphone would only have an aperture in the center of the phone with the ability to attach large lenses...
 
We dont want thinner! STOP THE OBESSION WITH THIN.

Especially when it handcuffs power.

I do agree, the iPhone currently doesn't need trimming down. Cutting down Weight is higher up in priority on my agenda.

Case in point is the iPad 2. Nice to hold but it still Feels heavy holding it with one hand after a few minutes.
 
Optical zoom > 12mp Phone camera

I'm so with you.

Unfortunately, optical zoom takes space, period.

But, I'm going to be ecstatic the day they figure out how to do optical zoom in a cellphone and not make the cellphone bigger. That is going to be awesome.

That's the only big improvement I want in my iphone camera at this point. And the only reason I'm not annoyed it doesn't have it is I realize that they'd have to sacrifice size by a decent amount to get it so I know why they don't have it.
 
...With the non-iPhone devices exhibiting thinner form factors than the iPhone, Apple has had to sacrifice on the camera quality and resort to thinner, lower-resolution sensors on those models.

Maybe if Apple didn't have this constant obsession with making things .00001 inches thinner and .0004 grams lighter, we wouldn't HAVE to sacrifice quality.

Seriously...does anyone really WANT a phone that weighs as much as a credit card and/or so thin that it feels like it will break if you drop it from 3 inches high.

A $500+ iPad with a 1MP camera is just disgusting. Ditto for the latest iPod Touch that has the same crappy camera!
 
1.) I was under the impression that the camera cost was quite small compared to that of the screen.

What i was saying was everything they copy and keep copying will add up

2.) Apple has a pretty large profit margin, they can afford to stick in better parts without worrying that much about cost.

Like i said before, the iphone is 3X the cost, i dont think a small amount of hardware will account for 400$
bold is answers
 
2.) Apple has a pretty large profit margin, they can afford to stick in better parts without worrying that much about cost.

You don't get profit margins that good with thinking like that. Hence, don't expect that logic to carry the day.
 
I totally agree, my wife's 4 has image quality that is leaps and bounds above my 8MP android phone.

You haven't seen the SGS2' s photos then. They blow away the iphones photos. Don't believe me? Look it up, the iphone4 is getting a lttle long in the tooth and it doesn't do anything better than the latest crop of Android phones.
 
Could hint at 1080p video in iPhone 4S etc.

All the rumors are pointing toward an enhanced iPhone 4 this fall (maybe called the "iPhone 4S"). Dual-core processor, slightly bigger screen with no bezel, yadda yadda. Specs shmecks.

The end-user benefit of all these improvements will be better performance, probably enough to easily handle 1080p video. Cue the 1080p sensor. Of course this also means that iPod touch, iPad, and Apple TV will soon be able to record and/or play 1080p video.

Just a thought.
 
Yes! Anyone having problems differentiating image quality from resolution (mp #) this link helped me out a lot:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm

As hinted at earlier, it is pretty likely that MP myth itself will become myth, eventually. It's easy to see that the current line of Nikon DSLR's using similarly sized APS-C sensors with vastly more resolution (up to 16 megapixels) outperform less dense sensors from earlier.

Eventually, technology paves the way for better. If Apple get ahold of parts that perform better than earlier parts, this is better for us. If those parts happen to have better sensor resolution as well, then great. Of course, for such incredibly dense sensors, the optics had better be decent otherwise, there is no such thing as 'sharp' or 'contrasty'.

In terms of density: the D7000 (nikon's current flagship enthusiast camera with a sensor of ~23,6 mm across) has sensor density that equates to ~36 megapixels on a 35 mm frame. The 5 megapixel iPhone 4 camera has a horizontal width of 5,68 mm, making it 0,16 the width of the 35mm camera film plane/sensor width.

I'm not great at maths, but the iPhone 4 current camera has a density that would translate to something around 100 megapixels if spread across a 35 mm format sensor at its current density per square mm values.

That is pretty demanding of a lens, especially how light gets in.

But as long as the technology allows for those pixels to absorb light well enough and the lens is good, we should be able to enjoy great photos from the iPhone next.

My D200 is far far far outplayed by my wife's D5000 in terms of sheer performance at the same ISO despite her camera packing 12 megapixels. The same (but to an acuter degree), could be said of the D7000 which simply destroys my D200 in every metric possible despite being much more packed with pixels.

New generations of sensors yield better results.
 
I agree that Apple is too obsessed with making things thin. More thought needs to go into how comfortable devices are to actually hold and use. My only complaint with the iPad 2 is how sharp the edges start to feel after prolonged use. Otherwise, I'm grateful for the reduction in weight, which does have a real practical benefit with prolonged use.

As I type this on my MacBook Pro, I'm looking at my father-in-law's chunky Toshiba laptop just across the table and my word, I'm glad my laptop doesn't look like that. There's a balance needed.

I think 5 MP happens to be the right balance between achieving reasonable high-resolution photos and not wasting disk space. That tells us nothing about the actual image quality of course, but in terms of specs alone, I would really love to see it stop at 5 MP for these consumer devices. Perhaps one day I will change my mind when SSD storage is even bigger and cheaper, but for now 5 MP strikes a good balance.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.