5 ms·

Did I miss something, or are they, once again, not upgrading the camera? The low light performance of the current version is real bad. Since we're all using the

Did I miss something, or are they, once again, not upgrading the camera? The low light performance of the current version is real bad. Since we're all using these cameras way more, I really thought there would a hardware bump. You can only squeeze so much detail out of an under-exposed, noisy image with software.

crazygringo 6y ago
I'm curious, are higher-quality cameras even available that fit into the thin lid? (At a reasonable price?) I was always under the impression that the built-in camera is so much worse than your phone's front-facing camera simply because the phone is thick and has room, while the MacBook lid is much thinner.
- afandian 6y ago
  That's a kind-of-backwards argument though isn't it? The lid needs to be thick enough to contain the necessary components, not the other way round.
  - dijit 6y ago
    But if the entire lid was as thick as a phone because of a camera then it would be enormous for no realistic reason. The rest of the screen display is thinner than the camera module already.
  - crazygringo 6y ago
    Obviously Apple sees thinness as a major feature. The reality is, for most people 720p is more than enough, since most videoconferencing is at a heavily compressed 480p anyways, and it's not like most people really want it super obvious that they missed a spot shaving or have a small zit anyways. And sure the quality arguably falls to below 480p in very low light conditions, but that's not an issue in any normal well-lit office, coffee shop, or kitchen or living room. I would assume Apple is making the right call here that a higher-resolution camera isn't worth additional thickness.
    - WoahNoun 6y ago
      Yea, I hate the way the background blur feature in google meets suddenly make my face way brighter and "pop" in the video. With winter coming, I'm getting a lot less natural light in my work area and my videos just look dreary.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  Considering how good they are at iphone cameras there is absolutely no reason to have a poor camera nowaday in the laptop. They know how to make cameras that fit in tight places. They're just being lazy/cheap
- jefftk 6y ago
  Instead of having a camera as thin as the lid, they could have the camera stick out a little bit and fit into a recess on the other side of the clamshell when closed.
  - Toutouxc 6y ago
    I'm almost sure they couldn't. I can't quite put my finger on it, but that's just not how Apple does things.
    - crazygringo 6y ago
      I know you're being snarky, but in all seriousness they'd need to make the touchpad smaller to make room for it. And considering people LOVE Apple's huge and amazing trackpads... I would guess it wouldn't be a smart tradeoff.
whiddershins 6y ago
I saw mention of a whole bunch of camera stuff including improved face detection.
- cromka 6y ago
  That's via Image Signal Processing, not the camera itself.
onepointsixC 6y ago
No, I don't think you're wrong. Apple has a bizarre product offering which combines an 8 core processor with a 720P camera and 8GB RAM.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  Surprising as it seems, 8GB seems to be enough for most "normal" users. My wife has an 8GB MacBook Pro and I'm always shocked by how many open tabs she keeps in Chrome and how many Office documents are open at any given time. My 16GB MBP is constraining sometimes and the next one will, doubtlessly, come with at least 32GB. Until Apple can do that, I won't use an ARM-based Mac as my daily driver. As for the 8-core, it's 4 beefy ones and 4 low-power ones. Load will shift from one kind to the other according to usage patterns. This is how they achieve that 20-hour battery life.
- mekster 6y ago
  How come people have problem with 8GB of RAM as if without more, your usage is screwed? I run heavyweight IDE, Photoshop, VMware and Chrome and I still could manage with 8GB fine. Who requires 16GB for daily use?
tomjen3 6y ago
I brought a decent external camera, and while being able to position it is a must have, the quality means that if I don't shave or have a nick or something in the background, it is obvious. Whereas the people I am on an online call with have about has many pixels dedicated to their hair as Laura in Tomb Raider 3. I still care enough that I use it, and I am disappointed in Apple not including their iPhone camera, but it might not be something the average person wants.
- gcp123 6y ago
  Which camera did you get?
akmarinov 6y ago
It's looking like they stuck the M1 in the same bodies of existing Macs with the intention of upgrading everything next year.
- dijit 6y ago
  If you look at the cooling solutions on the current macs I’d say the inverse: that these chassis were designed with the M1 in mind and they shoehorned Intel CPUs into them.
- dartdartdart 6y ago
  This is exactly right. They could have done everything in one go, but they had to change the keyboard and call that the 5th generation macbook pro. Like they didn't even include wifi 6 in the previous model nor did they hold an event for it. Kuo says a redesign is due in 2021, but apple can't keep getting away with doing the same thing since 2016. There are laptops with dual screens, 4k touch screens, vapeor chamber cooling, and apple just be changing out the keyboard for the next gen. This new chip is good for the chip industry, but it's not really a different laptop at all.
  - mirthflat83 6y ago
    > dual screens > touch screens > vapeor chamber cooling ...Thank you apple for not listening to the HN crowd
gnicholas 6y ago
I agree that the cameras are subpar. I wonder if Apple figures that most Mac users already have an iPhone, and that if they want to use a better camera for videoconferencing, they can always just plug in their iPhone and use it as the camera. Has anyone done this? I've considered using my iPad Pro's camera this way but have never cared enough to actually do it.
- dnh44 6y ago
  I got a tripod and use my iPhone’s rear facing camera and I’m really happy with the setup.
  - gnicholas 6y ago
    Where do you position it? Right in front of your screen, or above/below?
    - dnh44 6y ago
      Behind the monitor just above eye level.
  - dmitshur 6y ago
    What software are you using to pull it off? I want to do it too, but don’t want to choose between 3rd-party apps. I wish it were built-in to the OS, like AirPlay and Sidecar are...
    - dnh44 6y ago
      I wish it were built in too but at the moment I'm using a program called Camo. https://reincubate.com/camo/ https://reincubate.com/camo/
reaperducer 6y ago
are they, once again, not upgrading the camera? I'm pretty sure there was a part of the presentation talking about a camera upgrade. But it's not something on my wish list, so I didn't pay attention. Double-check the recording on Apple's web site. The answer may be there.
- aroman 6y ago
  The camera remains 720p, but they're claiming improved performance via signal processing algorithms[1] [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/10/macbook-pro-m1-720p-camera/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/10/macbook-pro-m1-720p-cam...

crazygringo 6y ago

I'm curious, are higher-quality cameras even available that fit into the thin lid? (At a reasonable price?) I was always under the impression that the built-in camera is so much worse than your phone's front-facing camera simply because the phone is thick and has room, while the MacBook lid is much thinner.

afandian 6y ago
That's a kind-of-backwards argument though isn't it? The lid needs to be thick enough to contain the necessary components, not the other way round.
- dijit 6y ago
  But if the entire lid was as thick as a phone because of a camera then it would be enormous for no realistic reason. The rest of the screen display is thinner than the camera module already.
- crazygringo 6y ago
  Obviously Apple sees thinness as a major feature. The reality is, for most people 720p is more than enough, since most videoconferencing is at a heavily compressed 480p anyways, and it's not like most people really want it super obvious that they missed a spot shaving or have a small zit anyways. And sure the quality arguably falls to below 480p in very low light conditions, but that's not an issue in any normal well-lit office, coffee shop, or kitchen or living room. I would assume Apple is making the right call here that a higher-resolution camera isn't worth additional thickness.
  - WoahNoun 6y ago
    Yea, I hate the way the background blur feature in google meets suddenly make my face way brighter and "pop" in the video. With winter coming, I'm getting a lot less natural light in my work area and my videos just look dreary.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Considering how good they are at iphone cameras there is absolutely no reason to have a poor camera nowaday in the laptop. They know how to make cameras that fit in tight places. They're just being lazy/cheap
jefftk 6y ago
Instead of having a camera as thin as the lid, they could have the camera stick out a little bit and fit into a recess on the other side of the clamshell when closed.
- Toutouxc 6y ago
  I'm almost sure they couldn't. I can't quite put my finger on it, but that's just not how Apple does things.
  - crazygringo 6y ago
    I know you're being snarky, but in all seriousness they'd need to make the touchpad smaller to make room for it. And considering people LOVE Apple's huge and amazing trackpads... I would guess it wouldn't be a smart tradeoff.

whiddershins 6y ago

I saw mention of a whole bunch of camera stuff including improved face detection.

cromka 6y ago
That's via Image Signal Processing, not the camera itself.

onepointsixC 6y ago

No, I don't think you're wrong. Apple has a bizarre product offering which combines an 8 core processor with a 720P camera and 8GB RAM.

rbanffy 6y ago
Surprising as it seems, 8GB seems to be enough for most "normal" users. My wife has an 8GB MacBook Pro and I'm always shocked by how many open tabs she keeps in Chrome and how many Office documents are open at any given time. My 16GB MBP is constraining sometimes and the next one will, doubtlessly, come with at least 32GB. Until Apple can do that, I won't use an ARM-based Mac as my daily driver. As for the 8-core, it's 4 beefy ones and 4 low-power ones. Load will shift from one kind to the other according to usage patterns. This is how they achieve that 20-hour battery life.
mekster 6y ago
How come people have problem with 8GB of RAM as if without more, your usage is screwed? I run heavyweight IDE, Photoshop, VMware and Chrome and I still could manage with 8GB fine. Who requires 16GB for daily use?

tomjen3 6y ago

I brought a decent external camera, and while being able to position it is a must have, the quality means that if I don't shave or have a nick or something in the background, it is obvious. Whereas the people I am on an online call with have about has many pixels dedicated to their hair as Laura in Tomb Raider 3. I still care enough that I use it, and I am disappointed in Apple not including their iPhone camera, but it might not be something the average person wants.

gcp123 6y ago
Which camera did you get?

akmarinov 6y ago

It's looking like they stuck the M1 in the same bodies of existing Macs with the intention of upgrading everything next year.

dijit 6y ago
If you look at the cooling solutions on the current macs I’d say the inverse: that these chassis were designed with the M1 in mind and they shoehorned Intel CPUs into them.
dartdartdart 6y ago
This is exactly right. They could have done everything in one go, but they had to change the keyboard and call that the 5th generation macbook pro. Like they didn't even include wifi 6 in the previous model nor did they hold an event for it. Kuo says a redesign is due in 2021, but apple can't keep getting away with doing the same thing since 2016. There are laptops with dual screens, 4k touch screens, vapeor chamber cooling, and apple just be changing out the keyboard for the next gen. This new chip is good for the chip industry, but it's not really a different laptop at all.
- mirthflat83 6y ago
  > dual screens > touch screens > vapeor chamber cooling ...Thank you apple for not listening to the HN crowd

gnicholas 6y ago

I agree that the cameras are subpar. I wonder if Apple figures that most Mac users already have an iPhone, and that if they want to use a better camera for videoconferencing, they can always just plug in their iPhone and use it as the camera. Has anyone done this? I've considered using my iPad Pro's camera this way but have never cared enough to actually do it.

dnh44 6y ago
I got a tripod and use my iPhone’s rear facing camera and I’m really happy with the setup.
- gnicholas 6y ago
  Where do you position it? Right in front of your screen, or above/below?
  - dnh44 6y ago
    Behind the monitor just above eye level.
- dmitshur 6y ago
  What software are you using to pull it off? I want to do it too, but don’t want to choose between 3rd-party apps. I wish it were built-in to the OS, like AirPlay and Sidecar are...
  - dnh44 6y ago
    I wish it were built in too but at the moment I'm using a program called Camo. https://reincubate.com/camo/ https://reincubate.com/camo/

reaperducer 6y ago

are they, once again, not upgrading the camera? I'm pretty sure there was a part of the presentation talking about a camera upgrade. But it's not something on my wish list, so I didn't pay attention. Double-check the recording on Apple's web site. The answer may be there.

aroman 6y ago
The camera remains 720p, but they're claiming improved performance via signal processing algorithms[1] [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/10/macbook-pro-m1-720p-camera/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/10/macbook-pro-m1-720p-cam...