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Much of the early iPad bashing that ensued right after the formal unveiling last week particularly focused on one thing: the lack of a built-in camera for videoconferencing.
And while Apple’s iPhone omits front-facing camera for video calls, pundits thought a webcam was a no-brainer for the company’s new 9.7-inch couch computing device. Critics have been slamming Apple for such a glaring omission, pointing their fingers at rival tablets and other handheld computers that mostly have a webcam as a default feature.
Steve Jobs made no mention of the camera during the iPad keynote and it cannot be spotted in the official iPad specs on Apple’s site. However, there’s a reasonably high chance that the iPads due to arrive late March could ship with a built-in iSight camera. Journalists who had a chance to play with the gizmo at Apple’s event noticed that iPhone OS 3.2 packs in camera services. Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney, who was at the unveiling, noted something that “looks like an iSight camera” when Jobs first held the iPad up for everyone to see:
And while Apple’s iPhone omits front-facing camera for video calls, pundits thought a webcam was a no-brainer for the company’s new 9.7-inch couch computing device. Critics have been slamming Apple for such a glaring omission, pointing their fingers at rival tablets and other handheld computers that mostly have a webcam as a default feature.
Steve Jobs made no mention of the camera during the iPad keynote and it cannot be spotted in the official iPad specs on Apple’s site. However, there’s a reasonably high chance that the iPads due to arrive late March could ship with a built-in iSight camera. Journalists who had a chance to play with the gizmo at Apple’s event noticed that iPhone OS 3.2 packs in camera services. Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney, who was at the unveiling, noted something that “looks like an iSight camera” when Jobs first held the iPad up for everyone to see:
As he holds it up, the light catches the iPad’s surface, illuminating something underneath. That something looks like an iSight camera, similar to the ones built into MacBooks, under the screens.
A last-minute spyshot that came via Engadget a few hours before the unveiling depicted an iSight camera on a prototype iPad in exactly the same position as on Jobs’ stage unit. On top of that, a repair firm Mission Repair which received iPad parts yesterday noticed an empty spot in the iPad’s screen frame that’s clearly meant to house an iSight camera:
We pulled a camera from a Unibody MacBook. Just a standard camera unit that we see everyday. Guess what, it fits right in there. The camera slips in the frame, the lens fits in the hole, the LED that indicates that the camera is on, fits, and the ambient light sensor hole is also correct. It appears that the plans to have camera in the iPad is a reality.
A Mac blog TUAW noted that the iPad supports six icons in the dock while the unit Jobs demoed on stage had only four icons for the Safari, Mail, Photos, and iPod apps. Perhaps the iChat videoconferencing app will fill one of the two empty slots? According to TechCrunch’ iPad emulator screenshot, iPhone OS 3.2 software powering the iPad clearly supports camera-related services. The finding has been corroborated by Engadget which discovered that iPhone OS 3.2 beta includes hooks for videoconferencing and video calls in either full screen or windowed mode.
