Source: Apple's next-gen iPhone has video camera - Page 2

I think that will become commonplace with phones in the future. Simply because we'll have so much personal data on them and are more likely to misplace them than a PC. I believe you can wipe if you are tied to an Exchange server.

I was surprised that it wasn't part of the new MobileMe service that allows you to geo-locate your iPhone if you have misplaced it. I had been hoping for both of these features and suggested that MM be the place that Apple could put them to help make their online service more attractive. Secure wipe is more important to me than the geo-locating, but I am still glad to be getting it.

It's pretty much the same story in Australia, when it was first introduced phone company advertisments pushed it as a feature, now they don't bother.

If you've ever tried it you'd know what a truely craptacular experience it is dressing it up to look good in an ad would definately lead to lawsuits.

Perhaps Apple should look into lenses, the Nokia-Carl Zeiss tie in has worked quite well, LG is promoting Schneider-Krutzfeldt lenses on their high end camera phones.

Kodak perhaps to keep it all American?

Voice Dialing could be possible if we look at the Google app that uses voice for search.

A software button could bring up the app, with a pause for the name, then activate the phone. Apple likely would not allow third parties access to this function.

Apple will have a tough time with a bigger and better lens and won't come close to even equaling the real quality of any decent Nokia phone's camera. Apple's devices are too thin. Nokia's devices with good cameras are pretty thick. Maybe there will be some breakthroughs in the tech but will Apple want to go thinner? Will the price be low enough or the selling point high enough to warrant such an expensive feature? I think Apple will want to go thinner and that the cost doesn't warrant it. Throw in a rumour that the 3rd iPhone revision will include a higher Mpx and video recording and Apple can wait at least a year before really making still imagines decent.

Can you enlighten me: What phones on the market now, and with what carriers, are offering video chatting? Do you have a link to a nice online demo?

Video in a cell phone is much like stills, it will never be as good as a dedicated device and in the case of iPhone the lack of user memory cards makes for limited usefullness. That being said if the camera has variable capture speed it would be very useful for technical work in the plant. That is the ability to do slow motion to study kinematics and do diagnostics. For the most part though I don't grab a cell phone for pictures. The quality simply isn't there.

Now the potential is there to do a combo cell phone and camera. But note how I state this, the implication is that camera is a device in it's own right. What we are talking about here is a device that has real glass lenses in a real zoom mechanism. Ideally Apple would also rethink the orientation of that optical path, i'd like to see a camera where the LCD would face up to the user much like a twin lens reflex.


Dave

Agreed. They may be able to use a better sensor, but the optics are always going to be limited by their pursuit of ever-thinner devices..

This is somewhat off-topic, but since it was mentioned in this article I am writing it here.
It pisses me off that both AI and Macrumors continue to perpetuate these RIDICULOUS speculations regarding the next iPhone using multi-core Cortex-A9 ARM cpus and/or the fastest multi-core version of the PowerVR SGX graphics chip..

1) the core designs may be finalized, but silicon from ANY manufacturer is not even CLOSE to being ready to ship in a production device.

2) More importantly, we all know that Apple is very much concerned with the "overall package" of the devices it sells, and takes into account not just theoretical performance specifications, but a dozen other concerns like battery life, form factor, weight, units cost etc. The iPhone 3G uses a middle-of-the-road ARM11 cpu and the "light" version of the PowerVR MBX graphics chip. The major difference with other smartphone manufacturers is solely in their advanced software and the fact that they actually licensed drivers for and UTILIZE the SIMD/DSP and graphics functionality of the chipset in the iPhone. My point is that there is no reason to suspect they will abandon their approach to device design and suddenly decide to use the most expensive, powerful, and power-hungry ICs for the next iPhone.

Much more likely I see the next iPhone using a chip that integrates a ~500-600Mhz (single-core) Cortex-A8 (which is already 1.5X as fast as an ARM11 at same clock) with a graphics chip that falls in the middle of the line of the next-gen PowerVR SGX series. Despite not being up to the level of the outrageous, unfeasible speculation of AI and Macrumors, this would still be incredible compared to even the current iPhone, and the resultant experience would continue to be FAR ahead of all the competitors. (this hardware is basically equivalent to that running the T.I. OMAP3 processor in the forthcoming Palm Pre).

Whatever. Who WOULDN'T want video calling? I know I do. I want it on my phone, I want it on my tv, I want it on my netbook. I want it everywhere. I want it all.

Your arguments are flimsy.

So, if an electric car is silent, and a deaf person doesn't hear it, and gets hit by the car, then by your same "logic", they would sue, and thus electric cars would be useless, "stupid", and never happen. Give me a break.

"Generally speaking", people didn't want a cell phone at all back in the day. People used to love their land lines.

Guess what. Times change. We'll look back at the iPhone five years from now, and the current iPhone 3G will seem like a 14.4 modem. Video calling will be ubiquitous, just like plug-in electric cars.

Probably even in Ireland.

Welcome to progress my friend.

Suggesting that one sort of technological implementation (mobile video chat) might pose some public risks doesn't mean that one is obliged to agree that any other technological implementation (silent electrical cars) pose similar or equivalent risks, and it is your logic that seems lacking.

For instance, would you argue that video glasses must be made available to one and all, even if it meant that we would have people wandering the streets effectively blind, because to express misgivings about such things must mean that you also are against, say, iPods, which render people effectively deaf?

You would not, because these are obviously very different cases (it being much easier to navigate an urban space with your eyes open and your ears closed, then vice versa).

People walking around staring at their cell phones, immersed in video chat, is a different order of business from people chatting away, voice only. I can certainly imagine someone walking in front of a car, oblivious, while having an intense face to face on their cell.

Just because tech makes something possible doesn't make it good or necessary. Cell phone use comes down to a matter of public etiquette, but having your attention entirely occupied while ambulatory goes beyond etiquette and straight to the emergency room. You can change what's possible in your hand, but that doesn't change what's going on around you. Reality has a way of trumping tech hubris.

If mobile video chat becomes ubiquitous, I guess we'll sort it out in a kind of Darwinian blood bath, or at the very least there will be a booming business in mugging people too stupid to pay fucking attention to where they are and who's around them, so I guess it's all good. Probably make for some hilarious You Tube videos, where the video chat session is abruptly upstaged by the phone's new owner.

My bet on faster wireless is not 7.2 Mbit/s download, but ~700 kbit/s upload. HSUPA on ATT is basically complete. If people are going to be publishing videos from the iPhone or doing video chats, it'll need some fast uploads. Wireless-N is also a gimme I think.

Do you actually use video calling?

Video phones have been around in many forms for several decades and it really hasn't taken hold that I am aware. Is it really going to succeed now when every previous iteration of the technology has failed to get people interested?

Seriously. Every high school, college and business user will want this feature more than anything. I use iChat video on a daily basis and am honestly surprised when friends are over (who don't own macs) and are in awe of iChat video. I'm like really? This is 2009 and most computers come with a built in web cam. Nonetheless, the masses do want to use their phones as video devices to talk and to send clips. If you can't see this than you're lost in the past. As for benefits... I can't even explain how useful video chat and screen sharing has been when speaking with not only friends and family, but more importantly with clients.

Video is the future! This has been in the works since the dawn of TV, of Star Trek and of the recent computer age.

Those were basically early prototypes displayed at various Expo's. Video phones will become prevalent. Maybe it will be the iPhone that can truly get this tech to the hoi polloi.


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I don't think it will happen in the model that replaces the current iPhone. Infact I believe that basic but slightly enhanced device will be around for awhile. What they will do is lower the power profile and enhance the performance modestly. In effect what everybody is using today will end up being the low end model ( with those modest revisions).

What will be in the high end iPhone is a more interesting discussion. Probably Cortex A8 but the big question is just how long PA Semi was working for Apple before the buy out. What ever hardware they designed is most likely already finalized and probably has been for months now. The thing here is that Apple has had a very long relationship with ARM and now owns part of the graphics IP company, so there is no doubt in my mind that they have been wire into Cortex in all it's variants and the new graphics core. So they could be far into a design with this hardware.

To a certain extent it is hard to deny Apples involvement in the graphics chip development. It is being advertised as OpenCL compatible, the first for the company. This didn't happen by accident!!

The problem is, is this hardware really targetted at Cell phones. I don't really think so and frankly there are plenty of high performance chips for phones now. I suspect that we will first see this hardwAre in larger devices that can use the extra performance. Even though they are ARM chips, the new cortex chips relatively use a lot of power.


Well Apple does have an advantage here, so I would not be surprised to see them out the door first with an A9 Cortex. I don't however see that going into an iPhone form factor device.

Of course there is the possibility that PA could so modify the ARM machine that we may not recognize it as either a Cortex A8 or A9. LA does have the background to take Apple the fully custom route. One thing they might do is add an instruction or two to speed up Objective C.

True to this point! However if they wanted to maintain that approach they would have never of purchased PA. There has to be a reason for that and getting out the door early may be one of the reasons.

If we are talking about the bottom end iPhone I would agree. It is clear though that Apple is working towards a family of devices. Apple could easily couple an A8 with the latest GPU core and come out ahead. Especially if they have any plans to put OpenCL on the iPhone. The core wouldn't need to run full out to be a nice upgrade. They are much freer to implement faster more power hungery tech on higher end models.

Apple needs a range of solutions and it looks like they are ready to give us just that. No that doesn't mean to me we will get sixteen GPU cores in a cell phone. That probably isn't going to happen but we may see eight in a video iPod Touch with a seven inch screen. To me it isn't a question that Apple is working on advanced SoC solutions but rather how many and what products they are targetting.



Dave

Btw, are they saying that the new summer 2009 iPhone will have video or just some future phone?

I never realized Americans were so far behind, I've got four phone's capable of video calls in my house right now, two of them sit unused in a cupboard, Motorola V3XX and Sharp 903, my kid's are using the other two Nokia N82 and SonyEricsson K800i.

None of them are ever used for video calls, we tried it as a novelty a few years ago, it really is a hopeless technology about as useful as tits on a bull.

Idiot and toilet mouth. There is really no need for the bad language. It just shows your mentality.

Wow. That was nice. Having a bad weekend?

I work in video. At work, yeah, iChat or Skype is extremely helpful. For daily life, though I have pushed both apps to my friends and family, it simply hasn't taken root. They try it and then return to regular phone calls or mail. And it isn't a problem of not understanding how to use it; most are beyond basic user level on computers. There are occasions when we use video, but mostly they choose not to.

Video is still a ways off for most people, IMO and experience, and I live in tech-savvy Japan.

As I have said before, I hope Apple chooses to install a better still cam that also does video; still images are so much easier to work with. And I repeat, I work in video.

It has not worked in the past because it was not implemented properly and it cost too much to use.

Enter Apple who know how to do this PROPERLY.

iChat for iPhone enable video chat with other iPhones and more importantly Computers.
I suspect Apple will release iChat for Windows at the same time as iChat Video on the iPhone.
Video calls will be included in your data plan or even better over WiFI.
Remember the early phones that did this did not have WiFi or wide spread 3G networks.

It just needs to be done well and it will be a great new feature.

That isn't an entirely applicable counter-argument, as consumers, young and old, have been utilizing text based phone services for quite some time, all while being mobile. I've even had friends who texted while driving. It just calls for juggling your attention a bit, but its not as big of a deal as most people make it out to be.

Heck, even I can walk and read at the same time, and I can't multi-task to save my life!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't any digital camera capable of recording video?? Isn't the present camera capable - it's the software that's lacking? Is the present camera that inferior?

A number of people are asking whether Apple will release a new iPhone this year and yes they will. I am not saying this with knowledge of insider information, but looking at the history of their product line as a whole. Apple makes it policy, more or less, to release a new version of a given product every year. Doing this keeps the line fresh, people buying and the competition running.

Apple listens to its customers, but will only act on it if they feel they can get it right. There are too many people selling fudged products, that Apple does not need to be another one.

Looking at the new iPod shuffle show that Apple is able to get things small, really small. What that means for a device like the iPhone is that if they can probably cram more into the case using the same approach. What I imagine seeing in the iPhone this June (both phones were released in that month in previous years):
- better battery capacity (but not necessarily longer charge)
- better CPU
- better GPU
- more storage, probably 32GB
- camera improvements

The reason I say the a battery will have better capacity, but still need to be charged as often simply because of the load a better CPU and GPU will put on it. One thing that the iPod had never had is an SD slot, or anything equivalent and I am not sure this is likely to change.

Since we are now going to start seeing turn-by-turn mapping software on the phone there will need to be enough space for it. Checking Tom Tom, their North America map comes in just under 2GB and their Western and Central Europe maps comes in at 2GB. That is a lot of storage space. Ideally having a mini-SD slot would be welcome, but seeing history more onboard storage space is likely to come first.

with video?

I'd love to see a Xenon flash but I guess that it would make the phone too thick.

I'm expecting N95 level optics in the next iPhone (5MP still, VGA recording) but that's still a way off the top phones (Samsung's OmniaHD has 8MP still with face/smile detection, 720P recording). Auto-focus is a must though.


Technically, yes. However, if you want to record video in decent quality then it's best to use a dedicated MPEG-4 chip.

It could be any number of factors, including a sensor with a low response rate, a high drain on battery life or not enough memory to buffer the images. I am willing to bet the sensor has a low response rate, which may be too slow for acceptable movies. This is based on simply seeing how the image staggers when I move the iPhone around.

I recall that AT&T had a video phone product in the 80's. It was more of a slide show phone, but the idea didn't capture enough public imagination to take hold, it only captured just enough to be mocked in a couple sitcoms.

Dude, you could have made the same the same point without the excessive profanity.

WIth the better GPU and potentially a better sensor, then yes. It also fits into providing the 'something else' that makes people want to upgrade. Supplementary storage space helps too.

How about adding video calls to the thing. Other countries (Japan, Australia, etc )have been doing this for some time now. The U.S. is SOOOO far behind in this area of technology it is embarrassing.

I don't really care if the iPhone gets a video camera to take videos, but to provide video calling, that is a different story. I don't expect Apple to implement this in the next iteration of iPhones, but perhaps within a few more years. By then, of course, Japan will have little holographic projectors in their keitais...ala Darth Vader and his "magic hand"

You can't be serious?? I think most people use voice like I do (or at least what I have seen) You press the button on your bluetooth ear piece to activate the voice dialing. I never touched my MotoRazr, just push the button on my ear...BAM! Then say "Call Mom" or "Call Home", If I had to touch my phone, it would lose the point to me. I want to be hands free during driving, not digging in my pocket to press a button on my phone. Add the voice dial button to the ear piece....forget the phone.

But when pressed, most of the proponents admit that many people aren't eager enough to actually use it. So you have the capability, but finding actual users is harder.

Or my nationality

I'll try to keep it clean officer!

Yep. Check out the prices. http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/nex...o_calling.html

If you are willing to pay the piper, keep demanding it.

By the way, they haven't been doing it for some time and it is not being used very often. Much like video conferencing via the computer. Most don't have the most recent hardware, internet service or desire to let others know what they look like at the moment.

Certainly, those that are driving will be reluctant and shouldn't, and having to have the camera facing you causes an issue.

Remember, you were referring to video calls, not recording a gaggle of geese crossing a highway and wanting it to get on the evening news.

More important, whoever you are calling, has to have a similar functioning phone. Good luck.

I'm quite serious. YOu can't propose a system that only works in certain environments under certain conditions and expect it to catch on.

So you propose a system had requires a BT headset to work. Just because I have physcial access to my phone doesn't mean I want to scroll through the menu finding a name I call regularly. There should be a way to enable voice dialing from any of the HW with mics in them.

Which button would I press on my Jawbone 2 to enable voie dialing? It has a button the back for volume and one in the middle for on/off. The buttons are so simple in the way they work so would this be a firmware update, would this require new HW or is this functionality already available for my earpiece with other phones?

Apple's headphones, which is how I mainly use my iPhone wouldn't work in their latest setup. I don't think there is anything set for click and hold, but by doing so you are probably blocking the mic with your fingers.

Another thing in addition to the publish video "typo" in OS 3.0 is the the appearance of the youtube accounts setting. Obviously if you wanted to upload straight to YouTube from iPhone you need to have an active youtube account.

A partnership with Apple and youtube would be a great marketing tool: shoot and publish directly to youtube with one tap.

However, are the cellphone network providers able to deliver on this? Are mobile data speeds a) fast enough b) stable enough to take all the uploaders? Is the hardware ready?

Good point.

My Net connection at home has far faster downloads than uploads; I send video sometimes and it is best to set it and go grab a coffee.

Uploading video would be painful on EDGE or the current 3G for AT&T. If your device is connected to a decent HSUPA or HSPA+ network that could work, but I am thinking that WiFi will be the only option out of the gate.

Welcome to AI.

Thanks!

Definitely new hardware coming in June. Think about it: 2G iphone users original contracts are due to expire then, plus Jobs is meant to be back in June from sick leave. It would make perfect sense for him to announce the new iPhone model.

Will be interesting to see how apple handles all the new firmware now. There will be 2G iphone, 3G iphone and new iphone. All will have different OS limitations (as we saw in os 3.0 announcement w/ 2g MMS). So, it would make marketing sense to have the new iPhone be able to do something extra that the 3G can't - ie. video. It would incentivise 3G owners to upgrade too...

I'm sure this could be throttled and put on a background process.