4 ms·

I think you're making rash assumptions there. There might be a whole lot of reasons why they left it out. One of the most obvious ones would be that they had to

by swombat 17y ago

I think you're making rash assumptions there. There might be a whole lot of reasons why they left it out. One of the most obvious ones would be that they had to make trade-offs to meet the release date, and there was something fundamentally not quite right about the way the camera interacted with the user experience, and so they had to cut that feature out until they could get things sorted.

maurycy 17y ago
+1 iPad camera might be tricky because of many different angles you can interact with it.
- samlittlewood 17y ago
  Given the pixel densities of cameras, I was wondering if it would make sense to capture a very wide field of view, and then extract head and shoulder shots (possibly multiple). The distortion could be untangled with the GPU. Face tracking is getting pretty damn good now. For bonus points call out to web service for recognition and tag each stream appropriately.
ashleyw 17y ago
If I had to guess, I'd say in the early days of development the iPad had a camera, but later on they realised it didn't fit in with the ideology of the device, scrapped it, but didn't bother creating a new mould for something a user would never see.
mechanical_fish 17y ago
An analogous point: It's very important to meet the price target. The iPad really would be a much less exciting device if it had debuted at $699 or $799 or even higher, as many pundits were predicting before the fact. The initial production ramp is full of stress and unpredictability. So in hardware, as in software, you release the minimum possible feature set at first, iterate on that, then add features as you learn how to deliver the basic features reliably and at ever-lower cost.
xcombinator 17y ago
Spot on. Also when you design something, it is much cheaper to include future extensions on it so all the molds, CNC programs...are the same and you don't have to redesign your product and your production process. This redesign is not only a cost in money, it is a cost of time too. Is not a good idea to focus in too much things at one time too, making a custom processor is too much change for Apple engineers with hardware rotation and multitouch acceleration. As far as I know, nobody has integrated them in hardware before.
ja27 17y ago
We still don't know for sure why Apple pulled the camera from the last iPod Touch update. Jobs has claimed it's a combination of keeping the price low and the way the Touch is now positioned as a game system, but plenty of people don't believe that. Adding a (admittedly low-end) camera didn't seem to impact the Nano's price and the leading portable game platform, the Nintendo DSi, packs two cameras. I think it's all about not undercutting the iPhone. The iPhone has 4 things the iPod Touch doesn't have: voice calling, 3G networking, GPS, and a camera. The iPad is adding GPS and some models will have 3G networking. If it had a camera, it'd have all the features of the iPhone except voice (and pocket size).

by swombat 17y ago

maurycy 17y ago

+1 iPad camera might be tricky because of many different angles you can interact with it.

samlittlewood 17y ago
Given the pixel densities of cameras, I was wondering if it would make sense to capture a very wide field of view, and then extract head and shoulder shots (possibly multiple). The distortion could be untangled with the GPU. Face tracking is getting pretty damn good now. For bonus points call out to web service for recognition and tag each stream appropriately.

ashleyw 17y ago

If I had to guess, I'd say in the early days of development the iPad had a camera, but later on they realised it didn't fit in with the ideology of the device, scrapped it, but didn't bother creating a new mould for something a user would never see.

mechanical_fish 17y ago

An analogous point: It's very important to meet the price target. The iPad really would be a much less exciting device if it had debuted at $699 or $799 or even higher, as many pundits were predicting before the fact. The initial production ramp is full of stress and unpredictability. So in hardware, as in software, you release the minimum possible feature set at first, iterate on that, then add features as you learn how to deliver the basic features reliably and at ever-lower cost.

xcombinator 17y ago

Spot on. Also when you design something, it is much cheaper to include future extensions on it so all the molds, CNC programs...are the same and you don't have to redesign your product and your production process. This redesign is not only a cost in money, it is a cost of time too. Is not a good idea to focus in too much things at one time too, making a custom processor is too much change for Apple engineers with hardware rotation and multitouch acceleration. As far as I know, nobody has integrated them in hardware before.

ja27 17y ago

We still don't know for sure why Apple pulled the camera from the last iPod Touch update. Jobs has claimed it's a combination of keeping the price low and the way the Touch is now positioned as a game system, but plenty of people don't believe that. Adding a (admittedly low-end) camera didn't seem to impact the Nano's price and the leading portable game platform, the Nintendo DSi, packs two cameras. I think it's all about not undercutting the iPhone. The iPhone has 4 things the iPod Touch doesn't have: voice calling, 3G networking, GPS, and a camera. The iPad is adding GPS and some models will have 3G networking. If it had a camera, it'd have all the features of the iPhone except voice (and pocket size).