iCamera (or iCam, or iPic, or whatever)
I almost put "CONFIRMED!" in the subject line, but my cautious side has the better of me now. Maybe we should call it "all but confirmed." Anyway, I'm now firmly convinced that Apple will be releasing some sort of iPod-like Digital Camera at MWSF. (As well as the LCD iMac and lots of other goodies...)
Check out this<a href="http://www.deplume.com/thinksecret/archives/osx1012install.jpg"; target="_blank"> pic </a>that I found in the ThinkSecret article on 10.1.2. It's the readme for the installer of 10.1.2. The first enhancment listed is for "Updated and new USB and FireWire device support, including FireWire-based digital cameras."
The last bit struck me as very important. "...FireWire-based digital cameras..." I've never seen nor heard of a FireWire digital camera. Even the really high-end professional digital cameras, like the Olympus E series, Nikon 5000, and the Fuji FinePix S1 Pro, all use USB for connectivity. Certainly, Apple doesn't sell any digital cameras at their stores that use FireWire for connectivity.
Yet.
I'm imagining it'll be rather like the iPod. $399 or so seems like a reasonable price for a nice 3 megapixel camera with hard-drive storage and FireWire to download images to your mac. Eight to Ten hour battery life, and updated Image Capture software.
Sounds good to me!
[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Mojo @ work ]</p>
Check out this<a href="http://www.deplume.com/thinksecret/archives/osx1012install.jpg"; target="_blank"> pic </a>that I found in the ThinkSecret article on 10.1.2. It's the readme for the installer of 10.1.2. The first enhancment listed is for "Updated and new USB and FireWire device support, including FireWire-based digital cameras."
The last bit struck me as very important. "...FireWire-based digital cameras..." I've never seen nor heard of a FireWire digital camera. Even the really high-end professional digital cameras, like the Olympus E series, Nikon 5000, and the Fuji FinePix S1 Pro, all use USB for connectivity. Certainly, Apple doesn't sell any digital cameras at their stores that use FireWire for connectivity.
Yet.
I'm imagining it'll be rather like the iPod. $399 or so seems like a reasonable price for a nice 3 megapixel camera with hard-drive storage and FireWire to download images to your mac. Eight to Ten hour battery life, and updated Image Capture software.
Sounds good to me!
[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Mojo @ work ]</p>
Comments
Yet.
[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Mojo @ work ][/QB][/QUOTE]
There are firewire based digital camera's. Check <a href="http://www.unibrain.com/products/ieee-1394/sony/sony_digital_camera_kits.htm"; target="_blank">this</a> out.
<a href="http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0009/27.hasselblad.shtml"; target="_blank">Here </a> is another one.
[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Phrogman ]
[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Phrogman ]</p>
<strong>I almost put "CONFIRMED!" in the subject line, but my cautious side has the better of me now. Maybe we should call it "all but confirmed." Anyway, I'm now firmly convinced that Apple will be releasing some sort of iPod-like Digital Camera at MWSF. (As well as the LCD iMac and lots of other goodies...)</strong><hr></blockquote>
I had always thought that confirmation implies at least some kind of direct knowledge. All I see here is an inference, and an assumption that Apple did not simply leave the word "video" out for brevity.
That said, I wouldn't count out the possibility of a digital camera from Apple, simply because they have the ability to put the 5Gb miniature drive and firewire into the device and offer a huge amount of internal storage that still transfers quickly. My Nikon 990 was at the time of purchase top of the line, and yet it only holds 12 pictures at highest quality. Sure I could swap out the flash memory for one much larger, but it would come nowhere close to 5Gb.
The above of course is presented as speculation, backed by a couple observations. It is not "all but confirmed."
-- ShadyG
Sony
Panasonic
JVC
etc..
Originally posted by Phrogman:
<strong>The last bit struck me as very important. "...FireWire-based digital cameras..." I've never seen nor heard of a FireWire digital camera. Even the really high-end professional digital cameras, like the Olympus E series, Nikon 5000, and the Fuji FinePix S1 Pro, all use USB for connectivity. Certainly, Apple doesn't sell any digital cameras at their stores that use FireWire for connectivity.
Yet.
[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Mojo @ work ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
There are firewire based digital camera's. Check <a href="http://www.unibrain.com/products/ieee-1394/sony/sony_digital_camera_kits.htm"; target="_blank">this</a> out.
is another one<a href="http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0009/27.hasselblad.shtml"; target="_blank">Here </a>
[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Phrogman ][/QB]
Those Sonys seem to be video cameras, not still cameras.
The Hasselblad, I'd forgotten about that. It's a damn nice camera. Very, very high end. (You know that Hasselblad cameras were the ones that the astronauts took to the moon? Well, not digital Hasselblads, but you know what I mean...) But it's software is primarily designed for Windows, and I'm not sure if Apple would bother investing the resources to support the single FireWire camera out there. Particularly if it doesn't even support Macs very well.
<strong>Almost ALL DIGITAL VIDEO cameras have Firewire ports on them
Sony
Panasonic
JVC
etc..</strong><hr></blockquote>
You're right. But I don't think the readme is talking about
Video cameras. I think it's referring to still cameras, otherwise they would say "Digital Video Cameras."
<strong>
I had always thought that confirmation implies at least some kind of direct knowledge. All I see here is an inference, and an assumption that Apple did not simply leave the word "video" out for brevity.
-- ShadyG</strong><hr></blockquote>
You have a point. I said that my cautious side won out, and it was for this very reason.
Quote
Maybe you are on the right track, but maybe the DV part is the bit that is slowing you down. As I already own a hitachi DVDram camera I can tell you that you can store a lot of MPEG2 (.vob) files on a 2.8gig dvd-ram disc. (1 hr of dvd quality footage, or 2000+ 700k jpegs)
OK, that is different technology and a different direction to what you are talking about, but what if an apple photo device used MPEG2 directly..... and the downstream was that Apple finally announces support for MPEG2 directly in Quicktime (www.softarch.com have a press release about a conversion product that does just that for release on 10 Dec - they are a bit late already), then we might be talking.
That would mean that your iDevice captured MPEG2 movies could be stored on iPOD (or in the device if it has its own HD), then used directly in QT pro/iMovie/Premiere etc. at 5Gig we are talking about more than 2 hours of DVD quality footage, or 1000s of large jpegs, or a good combination of both if the device could do stil and motion images. it is just a hop skip and jump from there to burning you own iDVDs (as is the case for my DVDram camera).
This is where Firewire would fit in nicely as described above. Just bring the ipod/idevice back to the mothership and go for a quick download.
So, MPEG2, not DV ? You have to admit that Apple have really been draging their public feet on MPEG 2 support in QT (and their story that licencing it is expensive is BS because even small PC software companies like uLead and cyberlink [PowerDVD etc] have it).
Anyway - I know this is 'a bit out there' but what do you think...... MWSF is shaping up as having lots of new goodies.... maybe this is one that blends new hardware and updated old software.
UNQUOTE
Cheers
adam
<strong>...
I'm imagining it'll be rather like the iPod. $399 or so seems like a reasonable price for a nice 3 megapixel camera with hard-drive storage and FireWire to download images to your mac. Eight to Ten hour battery life, and updated Image Capture software.
Sounds good to me!
[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: Mojo @ work ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sounds good to me too but I doubt Apple will make it. Digital cameras are a tough business. There are a ton of competitors out there and they involve technologies that Apple doesn't own such as lens design and CCD design. If Apple did make a digital camera and if they did a really nice job of it then it would probably cost about $1,500 to $2,000.
I think they are content to get the benefit of connecting to all the digital cameras made by all the other companies.
I think that Apple would rather be in markets where it is either first or where it has a very substantial value added due to application of its technology.
Video production was a good example. The market existed but by using a Power Mac with Apple software you could replace (more or less) a $50,000 system with a $5,000 system. There is no way to get this kind of 10?1 advantage in the digital camera market that I know of.
If apple meant Firewire Digital Video Cameras, it would have said "Firewire Digital Video Cameras," simply omitting the "video" part leaves us with just "Digital Cameras" which is a very market specific term.
That aside, if you look at the digital camera market right now, it's very analagous to the MP3 player market prior to the introduction of the iPod: digital cameras are considered an essential pc accessory, yet while there are lots of good choices, which span a broad spectrum of prices and feature sets, there is no clear market leader, and while most will work with your mac, there are none that are particularly mac friendly.
Also, it's interesting to look at all of the things Apple has done, as far as digital cameras are concerned. With the Quicktake series of camera, years and years ago, Apple had one of the first practical digital cameras on the market, more recently, Apple has integrated "image capture" software into Mac OS 9 and X, software that sucks photos off of most popular cameras when they're connected. Also, Apple has developed QuickTime software for use in Digital Cameras, which has been adopted by a few of the larger makers of digital cameras.
<a href="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/apr/23cameraquicktime.html"; target="_blank">Apple PR Release</a>
There have, for the past year or so, been rumblings in the industry that Apple was hard at work at an "iPhoto" application. Turn what we know now as Image Capture into a fully functional image downloader / editor, and you essentially have iTunes for digital cameras.
As recently as the iPod's coming out party, Apple expressed an interest in entering the Digital Photos market in some form, remember steve's four part pie chart? iMovies, iTunes, iDVD, and... "Photo." At that time, Apple didn't elaborate on exactly what it was they intended to do in the "Photo" space, but I suspect something is coming soon.
So, let's outline what it would take for Apple venture into digital cameras to be worthwhile. The iPod is a market leader because of its size, capacity, ease of use, and style. The digital camera market is definitely lacking a stylish, high capacity model with an intuitive interface.
Most digicams seem to have been engineered by the same kids who wrote the manual that came with my VCR, they're often confusing to operate, with lots of little buttons and byzantine navigational menus. So plunk an Apple® designed interface into a stylish 3 mega pixel digital camera, with a huge lithium polymer battery, a 5GB harddrive, and a firewire port, coupled with iPhoto, and you have iEye.
Lol, okay, maybe I need to work on the name, but you see where I'm going?
ciao,
oh bullshit! firewire on digital cameras has been around for some time, and isn't something new. the Nikon D1, and D1X has had firewire for years. Canon's new <a href="http://www.usa.canon.com/EOS-1D/index.html"; target="_blank">EOS 1D</a> uses firewire to transfer files, as well.
[oh, and both canon and nikon heavily support macs. G4s are usually the preferred computers used by pro-digital photographers.]
[ 12-13-2001: Message edited by: anavrin ]</p>
I've been saying now for a while that Apple is touting the whole digital camera thing (sells them on their site, iTools to post them easily, devotes a section of their retail stores to display/highlight them, as ImageCapture and Preview in OS X, etc.
What they DON'T have (and what would be a kick-ass addition to the stable of iApps) is a consumer-level, cool Photo editing program. Something to digital cameras/photography what iMovie is to digital video and iTunes is to digital music. I'd venture to say that more people probably own digital still cameras than video ones anyway, so where's Apple's cool iSnap or iClick app?
Something like Kai's Photo Soap (minus the lame-ass, infuriating interface that is the hallmark of his overrated crap) for letting the average, non-Photoshop-owning (what soccer mom is going to plop down $600 for a program that, after 7 years, I barely have a handle on?) crop, retouch, remove red-eye, name, add basic type to, etc.
It would be a hit. Kind of like Photoshop elements, I guess. Except Apple would figure out a way to make it completely intuitive and idiot-proof. Just the thing for all those people who'll be waking up Christmas morning to a new digital camera...two weeks later, a cool iApp that lets them get the most from it.
Isn't that the big thing about the whole "digital hub" strategy? Adding value to your existing digital devices by using the Mac to get more from them?
Or something like that...
That DOES seem to be the missing piece of the consumer iApp pie, doesn't it? A basic photo editing package, done in the simple iMovie/iTunes/iDVD style.
As for a iCamera (or something to that name), I think would be a very cool addition to the whole Digital Hub strategy. Yes, a 3 megapixel would be fine. With a 5 GB HD would be awesome. However what would make it stand out from the rest is if it had both optical and digital zoom, a view window, with a very Mac-like interface. Now that would be a hot-selling product. Especially if they could make that at $399 as well!!
Yes it's a 'digtal CAMERA' not video.
[ 12-14-2001: Message edited by: KidRed ]</p>
<a href="http://dvdcamstore.hitachi.com/kore/catalog/catalog.html"; target="_blank">http://dvdcamstore.hitachi.com/kore/catalog/catalog.html</a>;
or even at the Panasonic version which is the same camera but with a panasonic badge (they cooperated on it with Hitachi - Hitachi disc mechanism and panasonic camera) -
<a href="http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/camcorder/dvd_camcorder.asp"; target="_blank">http://www.panasonic.com/consumer_electronics/camcorder/dvd_camcorder.asp</a>;
I have the Hitachi and the quality is fantastic....and Software archetics are about lo release DVDram Tuneup 5 which will have a utility for converting mpeg2 (.vob) to Quicktime format! check this -
<a href="http://www.softarch.com/us/press/dvdratuneupProv5.html"; target="_blank">http://www.softarch.com/us/press/dvdratuneupProv5.html</a>;
Anyway - I agree with the others - a better photo app will see me stop waiting for photshop........ Especially when combined with Graphic Converter which is the first (but not last) shareware I every purchased way back. I am glad that I have both the superdrive (G4 867) and the dvdram drive that came with my G4 Dual 500. I am starting to get the nice convergences that I envisaged when I bought the DVDram camera.
I still would be interested in a Mac iCamera if it was high res and firewire and had a HD!
Cheers
adam
If you want FireWire webcams, I can give you two examples :
-<a href="http://www.orangemicro.com/ibot.html"; target="_blank">OrangeMicro iBot</a>
-<a href="http://64.212.88.83/cgi-bin/sgin0105.exe?UID=2001121402063973&T1=I245+1034&FNM =21" target="_blank">iRez StealthFire</a>
If they do release a camera, any ideas of what it would be like? I'm thinking it would be similar in size and features to the Cannon S110 (2-3 megapixel, 2-3x optical zoom), but with a look that's similar to the iPod (polished metal, white lucite, etc.). I think it would definately have a firewire interface, but would have some kind of flash card type memory, not a hard drive (to conserve space for the CCD, lens, and other guts that digital cameras have). It would be able to sync with whatever imaging software Apple comes up with (like iPod/iTunes), and be able to connect directly with an iPod and dump pictures on it. Price: $599?
<strong>Mojo, maybe you were talking of FireWire webcams ? The Apple note in 10.1.2 talks about FireWire cameras (camcorders) IMHO. In this case, FireWire = iLink = IEEE 1394a and almost all digital cameras have this port now.
If you want FireWire webcams, I can give you two examples :
-<a href="http://www.orangemicro.com/ibot.html"; target="_blank">OrangeMicro iBot</a>
-<a href="http://64.212.88.83/cgi-bin/sgin0105.exe?UID=2001121402063973&T1=I245+1034&FNM =21" target="_blank">iRez StealthFire</a></strong><hr></blockquote>
No, I was referring to digital still cameras. You know, the kind you carry around with you on vacation.
A number of people- some much more politely than others- (anavrin, you need to learn some manners!) have pointed out that I was in error in regards to my assertion that there aren't any digital still cameras that use FireWire. So maybe I'm wrong about this whole thing, but I don't think so.
Scadboy has an important point about how Steve's 4 quadrant pie chart at the iPod intro glossed over Apple's activity in the "Photo" segment. If Apple considers "Photo" to be an equally important market segment as iMovies, iTunes, and iDVD, why haven't they produced a software component that's of equal marketing weight?
I view the current Image Capture program as sort of like the MP3 player that was bundled with the Public Beta- It's a placeholder app that will handle the barebones functionality until the full application is ready to be rolled out.
_aarons