[Hawkeye_a]

Alright... iPod is the absolute best at what it does.... msuic. So for those of us who want to enhance that value in our lives we purchase an iPod.... all our music at our fingertips anywhere we want.
Now we have the iPod Photo..... i must say that at first i was a bit reluctant to the whole idea. The thing that still bugs the hell out of me, is getting photos to sync through iTunes !!!! what the hell is up with that ?!?!?1 yes i know Jobs dosent want to release iPhoto for windows...so what does he do ? complicate the entire iSuite to accomodate instead of writing a simple syncing app for windows and having mac users use iPhoto !!! ugh...such a messy situation.

I think Apple has enough of a lead in Digital music to release an 'iCamera' or something... dosenth ave to be a high end digital camera, or the best of the best. Just needs to satisify the needs of most home users...hence the 'i' as in consumer. something like....
-3.2 MP (probably better than most home user's/college student's needs)
-2-3" color screen
-3X optical zoom
-10GB HD
-AV port (identical to the one on the iPod Photo)
-FireWire
-built in battery (similar to iPod....charges over FW when plugged in)

Somthing like this could allow lossless storage of photographs till you need to compress/share them on the 10GB drive.
Auto syncing with iPhoto.

Now i am aware that iPhoto is compatible with almost any digital camera out there. which is a great thing. So whats different about 'iCamera' ? u get to take your entire photo collection with you where you go.... auto syncing with your iPhoto library Similar to iTunes... playlists = photo albums).

I dont have a digi-camera, and ill tell you....if they come out with something like this.... i'd buy it in a heart beat. and im sure any new college students or home users would as well..... imagine perfect quality pics(better than any other 3.2 MP camera...which makes a difference) since compression would not be necessary when you take the photos...possibly at full resolution on a 3.2MP camera. NO memory stick/cards needed...no extra money....

Make it the 'prisitine' photo solution out there....i think it would work......

what do you guys think ?

[TheBadgerHunter]

This is a market that doesn't need Apple and they don't need it. Apple can't really bring to bear anything against the huge bulk of other cameras out there. With the iPod they were able to get ahead of everyone and do something very few others had tried and they did it better. Personally I just don't see a gap in the digital camera market for them to make a profitable camera.

[AKcrab]

Originally posted by TheBadgerHunter:
Personally I just don't see a gap in the digital camera market for them to make a profitable camera.

[bookofjames]

they could probably support a 3rd party digital camera plug in that stores your photos direct into the iPod Photo?

Maybe Canon or Olympus would like to take up that challenge?

[OldManMac]

Apple innovated in the digital camera field long before they became common. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they didn't prevail. The market is flooded now, and Apple bringing out another camera, with the hopes that they're going to sell enough to make a profit, is wishful thinking. You don't jump into a flooded market and hope to make money. Apple needs to keep innovating, not copying.

[Truepop]

maybe a partnership with HP to make the damn menus easier to use. I hate the interfaces on most digital cameras.

[Hawkeye_a]

If you ask me...the portable mp3 market was 'flooded' as well before the iPod came out. remember the 3 highlights of the iPod ?..... 1,000 songs in your pocket, auto sync and User Interface.

I dont think any digital camera out there offers anything with....
-all your photos where you go (with video out capability)
-suto syncing with iPhoto.
-User Interfaces... ill be the first to admit...i hate the UIs on digial cameras

now add Apple design to the mix, with an already tried and tested piece of software (iPhoto)... i think they'd have another hit on their hands.

Camera companies seem to be making money off the storage in those cameras.why hasnt anyone thought of using these tiny hard drives in them ? and how many consumer digital cameras have firewire built in ?

if you ask me....photos can be a completely different class of product. if apple presents a complete end-to-end solution for it... like they did with the iPod. people will buy it. remove the bottle necks....
-storage
-quality
-speed(of transfer)
-user interfaces

Apple's has.....
-the foundation (quicktime)
-Firewire
-iPhoto
-Design(and more important..UI design)

All they need to do is learn the basics of digital photography, lenses et al.. the way they learned about music compression n decompression for the iPod.

and add to the mix....the ability to share photos (like with the iPod Photo and iPhoto) and i think you got a winner.

[OldManMac]

First of all, they now have a device that will already hold your color photos, the iPod Photo. The bottle necks you mention have already been solved with this new device; why invent another device to do the same thing. People use a digital camera to take pictures, go their computer and print them, or, as I just did, burn thousands of jpgs on a CD and give to family or friends. They're not going to pass the camera around for people to look at the photos, especially now that they have the iPod Photo. As to your assertion that the market was already flooded before the iPod came out, that's just not true. There were some devices out there, but not as many as you'd like to believe, and the iPod was the driving force behind the MP3 portable player market. I was selling Macs at that time, and for years before, and three years after that as well. I've sold thousands of Macs, and dealt with many more customers than that.

Secondly, they still have too small a market share to guarantee success. Just because there's a lot of Macs out there, doesn't guarantee that all Mac owners would buy an Apple branded camera; the risk is too great as far as return on investment, especially when you consider that, once again the market is flooded. They're not going to go up against heavyweights in the camera market like, Sony, Nikon, Olympus, Fuji, HP, Canon, etc., in the hopes of selling a few cameras, when their research dollars will be better off being spent elsewhere. The interface issue isn't going to be an easy item to solve, no matter who tries. Today's cameras have a lot of features, and if you want to take advantage of them, you have to spend some time learning. It's no different with your Mac. You can open Word from the doc, and type a simple document, but, if you want to write a complex technical manual, you're going to have to spend some time learning the features, and complexities, of Word, or Excel, or whatever. That's not a function of the device, it's a function of your interest in deciding how deep you want to go.

Apple doesn't need to invest in camera research, when everybody else already has done that. I've owned two digital cameras, I have an iMac 17" FP, an Epson Photo 960 (which does phenomenal photos), and it's highly unlikely that I would buy an Apple branded camera, because the one I have right now does everything I need.

This issue is similar to the suggestion that pops up ocassionaly, that Apple should produce a PDA again. Another thing they innovated (the Newton), but, for whatever reason, it didn't catch on, and someone else flooded the market.

Apple is a big company, but in the scheme of the computer world, they are not big enough that they can afford to waste R & D money by developing products that are basically copies of succesful existing items. This year is the first time that digital cameras will outsell film cameras. Go to Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Sears, etc., and tell me that an Apple camera is going to stand out from the crowd. As much as I'd like to believe it, it just isn't going to happen.

[gerbnl]

I'm not game for an icamera, hell, not even for an ipod photo for that matter!

but I did wonder... now that the ipod can be connected to a tv or beamer... how much work can it be to make it possible to put a keynote presentation (yeah or ever the ms one) on it so you can do presentations without a pc. Just an ipod connected to a beamer?

[MilkmanDan]

They already have an iCamera. Its called an iSight, and you can buy one for $150. Sure you have to carry around a laptop connected to the iSight, but think of all the fun you'll have!

[Hawkeye_a]

Why in my opinion is this a good idea ?....
-There's a lot of money to be made
-There's a heck of a lot of things that can definately be done a LOT better and at a reasonable price. (example.... iPod is now a success even though it did enter a saturated market)
-If anyone....i think Apple is in a great position to introduce such a product.

As far as keynote presentations....i guess you could export the slides to pictures...but you'll loose the transitions.

Video is definately not possible...due to limitations of the hardware.
But...i think it would make sence to eventually add that feature as well.

Now that i think about it....Having all your music, photos and videos in one place and being able to connect it to a television or projector is a damn good idea.

I guess when you actually think about it. the iPod is not used to make music...just to take it around with you...and now you can do the same with your photographs. i actually like the idea of a iPod Photo.
hmmm

[phoenixboy70]

funny, i'm just selling my canon powershot g2 and i'm also in the market for a new ipod.

when i first heard "ipodphoto" i was like - great exactly what i'm looking for...until i read about it in more detail. an ipod that lets you look at your pictures? *hmpf*

WTF?

[Eug Wanker]

Don't worry, the iCamera is coming, but...

1) It's gonna be a plug-in device to the iPod Photo
2) It's gonna be 3rd party, not Apple's
3) The quality is gonna suck (vs. a real digital camera).

[TheJoshu]

I would likely buy an Apple digital camera, provided it was space-conscious and had a large hard drive. That combination is not served by any currently available option.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by TheJoshu:
I would likely buy an Apple digital camera, provided it was space-conscious and had a large hard drive. That combination is not served by any currently available option.

Apple is not going to get into the real camera business. I just don't see Apple competing favourably with the likes of Canon.

[hayesk]

Originally posted by bookofjames:
they could probably support a 3rd party digital camera plug in that stores your photos direct into the iPod Photo?

Maybe Canon or Olympus would like to take up that challenge?

Uhm... like the Belkin media reader?