Why the iPad doesn’t have a camera: Apple doesn’t want you to look fat

By John Brownlee (4:05 pm, Jan 27 2010)

Although John Gruber over at Daring Fireball predicted it a couple weeks ago, I think most of us were shocked when it turned out that Apple’s newly announced iPad tablet didn’t have a forward mounted camera.

After all, why not? With an entry-level price and a $29.95 unlimited 3G coverage plan, the iPad seems like it would afford a perfect solution for mobile video calling. Hell, even if it didn’t have those things, surely it would be just as good as, say, a MacBook in letting people play around in Photo Booth. Right?

No. I think Apple knew what they were doing here. Unless it’s mounted in the iPad keyboard dock accessory, the iPad is going to be predominantly used in a below eye-level position. What that means is that a forward fronted web cam would need to point upwards at a slant to capture a human face.

So what, our lithe and muscular long-necked readers ask? Two words: double chin. Or three words, if you prefer: double triple chins.

I honestly believe right now that this is the number one reason the iPad isn’t a video conferencing device, like many of us suspected: the camera has to point upwards to capture a face, and that is one of the last flattering photography angles around… at least as far as capturing a human face is concerned.

There’s a reason all those single overweight girls you know on Facebook do the “over-the-head” digicam profile shot: a photograph of a subject becomes less flattering the father you move the camera southwards from eye-level.

Your face looks thinnest (and therefore, by Western beauty standards, most attractive) when the shot it taken from a viewpoint pointing down at your face from above.

In other words: if the iPad had a front-mounted camera, most of the time, you’d look fatter than you are.

This might seem like an unimportant consideration, but no other tech company on the market cares as much about what its customers look like when they use their products than Apple.

Apple products aren’t mere gadgets. They’re lifestyle facilitators and fashion accessories.

In my opinion, the iPad doesn’t have a front-mounted web cam for one and one reason only. It’s not a technical challenge. It’s not because Apple doesn’t want to cannibalize sales. It all comes down to one reason and one reason only…

Apple just doesn’t want us to look fat.

46 comments »

About the author

John Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in iPad, News, Opinions, Top stories |

solar
You’re suggesting those girls are overweight, right? Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
John Brownlee
I’m not suggesting they are overweight at all. I’m suggesting they know that if they took the picture south of their chin, they are astute enough to recognize that the resulting picture would be less flattering.
Felipe
This the most absurd “thing” I’ve read in a long time. You should have taken your time to meditate about the iPad instead of trying to be the first writing about it.
Bill
Well, that’s called a theory, isn’t it? And IMHO, a valid one :)
But will we ever know the truth?
Bill
Jay Sebastian
Why not have a camera in the back? The Augmented Reality (AR) possibilities with the iPad would have been amazing… too bad.
pedro homero
this is the only downer for me – it would be great to use it on ichat or gtalk video :(
i’m still buying it, thought!
bubbakush
i dunno im kinda sad that its not more osx y
but i guess it is a new way of computing so ill have to try it.
the lack of a cam is disapointing,
i was looking forward to ichating with my wife over 3g.
i think they under did it but with the pricing who can complain.
i imagine the next models will be better.
overall the lack of a cam sucks but oh well.
i just cant make up my mind if i want yet another data plan.
Martyn Hutchby
Come on guys! The real reason is so that when the 2G version comes out in 2011 it’ll have an added camera as a fancy new feature.
Not complaining mind you.
I want one NOW! but there doesn’t appear to be any idea when its shipping in the UK …
Eric
Simple, they don’t want to cannibalize its other products, namely the iPhone and Macbook. If you could get a tablet with a cam, they wouldn’t sell the iPhone or Macbook to you.
http://www.szilveszter.ca WS
So this is the direction Cult of Mac is going? Ridiculous articles that are neither thought provoking or have even the slightest bit of cleverness to them?
I wouldn’t mind if the pieces were nothing but fluff, if (being the operative word) they were at least funny and well written.
This has neither. You just lost a loyal reader. I have better things to do with my time than read this crap. This is really a third rate place for intellectual depravity. It also doesn’t provide on iota of original news that can’t be gotten from other, more credible sources.
So long…
Gw
Hmmm… Somebody sounds like an overweight single female. ;)
http://twitter.com/bio_steve Steve G
I’m sure some 3rd party developer will make a wired camera that connects to it via the dock connector port. No whoop.
sy
I wonder if the landscape/portrait dichotomy affected the decision to not include front camera. I am actually surprised that the portrait orientation is kind of “default”. I expected the landscape to be default, with the home button/dock connector at the bottom and a front-facing camera at the top. That would make way more sense when used with the keyboard dock accessory, or even with the plain dock (photo frame mode). I just don’t understand the decision to go “all portrait”. The only important use â€“ reading books â€“ does not involve dock connector / camera, whereas other uses would benefit from the dock connector places at the longer side.
http://www.toxicspark.com Andrew Macdonald
I agree, but why the hell not include a camera on the back? The tiny iPod Nano’s have them, so why cant they fit one into a tablet?
surferboi
I have to say I think the theory and rationale are right on target. I am a photographer, and I noticed this myself trying to take a cell phone shot of myself to see which new glasses looked the best. It was horrid. Looked like I had a thought and it got stuck in my neck. Not cool, and very un-Apple.
Good call dude. Forget the people that don’t get that Apple is very astute about these things. Rock on, knuckle draggers.
(and a little meat on the bones never hurt anybody. Better than dating your hand, nerd boiz)
=|>
surferdwa
I think you are dead on. I was disappointed in the fact there was no camera, but my wife instantly pointed out the exact same thing. Makes a whole lot of sense to me.
Now why don’t they just put in a cool algorithm to un-distort the angle so I can video conference on the thing?
winston smith
this is hands down one of the stupidest things i have ever read.
http://claytonwillms.blogspot.com CPDubbleU (twitter)
John,
I hope this article was written tongue-in-cheek. Otherwise, it’s one of your more ridiculous ideas. The reason is not technical. When the 2nd Gen iPad is released 18 months from now, everyone who bought 1st Gen will feel like it’s useless and purchase a new one. It’s called perceived obsolescence and Apple Inc. is the ultimate master in executing it.
Nathan
I actually agree more with this not having a camera than the iPod touch or even new iPods not having a camera.
QueerThoughts
These girls are some of the most obese monsters on earth, if i were you id be very offended by the chubbiness of those dikes. Its not alright to put such inappropriate pics on the website. You guys are some concrete morons. Too bad those double chin cuties didnt use iphone cam in the dark to take those pics…
J
Would not be an issue if you had it on a table with the cover that unfolds into a holder (e.g. what you’d do in a hotel room).
To not include something so helpful to “help” feel better about ourselves is crazy.
More plausible is problems of bandwidth for AT&T 3g network, technical issues on how processor intensive it is, etc.
Recall, they planned and the killed camera on ipod touch recently (there is even a blank space in the teardowns inside where it was meant to go).
http://www.metrokids.ca Conrad
I can’t imagine it being processor-related. iPod Nano can handle it. Heck iPhone can handle 10fps video. And 3GS can do 30fps.
I don’t think Apple is intentionally leaving something out intentionally, simply to add it later as a feature. That is not very Apple.
Maybe they were trying to decide between a front-facing cam for iChat/Photo Booth or a rear-facing for Augmented-Reality.
Maybe they just don’t want us to constantly take bad pictures of ourselves and decide it’s iPad’s fault.
In any case – I’m trying to find a way to justify the purchase of this thing. I have an iMac, MacBook Pro, iPhone and iPod Touch. Any ideas?
http://www.metrokids.ca Conrad
Yup… redundancy and the inability to edit posts leads to what you just read. Wow.
Charel
There simply is no camera with the form factor or the quality available at the right price. The camera on the iPod is adequate, but it would look decidedly iffy on the iPad.
It will come as soon as Apple is satisfied on all three points.
John Brownlee
Saying that the “technical challenges” of a camera preclude its inclusion or that it would be too expensive is just nuts. Cameras are cheap and small even handling resolutions above 1024 x 768… which is why they are standard features even in $300 netbooks.
accolon
@Charel
They don’t have to use a iPod or iPhone camera for the the iPad. They could simply use one of those webcams from the MacBook line.
Brentoni
I agree the lack of video-conferencing camera (like the basic webcams in the iMacs) was a miss. Maybe if we shout loud enough toward Apple, hopefully it gets incorporated into the 2nd generation iPad.
Jaska
What a piece of crap! It seems Apple has now started to be as any other bloated company around. They have really gone insane by releasing such useless thingie. iPhone was (soooo last season already) something to be proud of but what the heck is this? I think they have just taken too many happy pills and lost their connection with the reality and public expectations (at least mine).
Mike Leezy
Is it just me, or are you needlessly giving Apple credit? Companies don’t leave out features because they think it is “what’s best for us.” It’s either not technically or financially worth the trouble right now given the product’s price point. Uploading live video and downloading another’s stream is pretty network and processor intensive stuff for what is essentially a netbook. But they’ll want you to believe that it’s still worth your money. You would be a good PR rep though.
Jake
The ipad doesn’t need a camera because the iphone has one.
Someone will create an app that allows you to use your iphone as a webcam and there is a microphone in the ipad (I think). Video chat sorted.
Apple didn’t put a camera in, possibly because of the viewing angle thing, but also because they want you to have a use for all their products. They don’t want you to buy one uber gadget when you can buy 3 or 4 that can be made to work together in interesting ways. It’s called capitalism.
They don’t want you to make phone calls with the ipad or use it for creating CGI for Avatar or taking photographs or as a mobile workstation. They want you to read books on it, which is not that pleasant on an iphone, watch movies, play nintendo ds types of games, use apps that would benefit from a bigger screen, etc… , and maybe write a few longer emails or update your blog every now and again.
They probably don’t want Dan Brown typing his next novel on one (they want you to buy a MacBook to), so we should count ourselves lucky that they’ve opened it up to keyboards, because that means it can be used to type longer documents, which makes it a genuine alternative to a laptop, for those of us who still like having a desktop, which unless you are a high end user or serious gamer ,is not something you need, given the power of laptops these days.
So, in the end, after alot of thought, I think I will get an ipad, primarily because it will have more battery life than most laptops – iphone battery chargers will probably work with it as well. This will enable me to do everything I ever need to do away from my desk, in combination with my iphone, for longer than a laptop would allow me, plus a few other things that my laptop doesn’t do or doesn’t do as elegantly.
Blake
lol, ima wait till 2012 to get one then buy like 15 and experimentally hack all of them, cause you know, it is the end of the worl :)
http://www.myspace.com/mrkite1968 Doug in Kansas City
John! What a wonderful article! Very funny, very tongue in cheek, and very TRUE. Anybody that is bothered by this article should grow up! I was disappointed when I found out the iPad did not have a camera, but really…am I so cruel that I would subject my friends on Skype to MY face from such an angle? No!
I was going to hold out for the next generation that would hopefully have the camera. Oh screw it. I want one right now. Bye! And again, thanks for the great article, John!
hawkeye
I always thought the angle-from-above facebook photos originated from the POV shots in the porn industry. Seriously. And these teeny boppers have no idea that porn made this angle popular.
http://supermonkeyhaha.blogspot.com daniel Keating
Sell them a Gucci, hype frenzied product -
Then sell it all over again after raising the spec a small amount and adding some features that could have been in at launch.
Front camera has been held back so you have a reason to buy the same product again.
Rey
It all comes down to money. Apple wants more money.
james braselton
hi there here is my theory the first gen might or might not have a market soo they left out on first gen too test the market becuase there have been 1.5 million ipads sold i probaly shure the second gen will have a camra or 2 camras like the 4g iphone for vedio confrecing it was a experament like nintendos vertual boy but that was a true flop at that time hope nintendo 3ds has better look then the vertual boy soo thats my thought why they did not include camra on first gen and apple also anounced a second gen ipad in about 9 months soo you could wait for second gen ipad if you want a camra but how will you hold the bigest camra with out dropping it too take pitures soo some pepole think the ipad is too big for piture taking
job
Obviously, they could have put a camera on the 1st gen iPad, and give it more than 64gig max storage too, but this is about a sales strategy of upgrading the product that they previously executed so well with the ipod.
early adopoters will get an iPad now and then buy a new one in a year when they apple releases the 2nd gen with all the features they know people want.
JJ
LOL
LGgeek
The company that makes the iPad couldn’t put in software to compensate for a fat face. sorry logic escapes me.
Yoojin213
I have an I pad and I was shocked to hear that there was no camera!!!
mike
They left out the camera so when the next gen ipad is released, the original will be more outdated. I love apple products, but I always have to wait for all the features I would be willing to spend money on.
Justin
Your theory is quite ignorant for a die hard mac enthusiast.
The implementation of planned obsolescence is what sustains Apple. They don’t care about how customers look… all they care about is making a buck.
Alexandra
Why are Internet posters such idiots.
“Sounds like an overweight single female” wrote it.
First of all, this is sexist as it suggests it’s only women who worry about how they look, then links being overweight to being single, maybe that’s why those women are so insecure about how they look.
It’s also inaccurate as the writer is male.
And it’s a logical fallacy to makes slurs against the writer instead of actually trying to come up with anything logical to make your argument instead.
Learn to argue.
Jdrewreed
The reason ipad first generation had no camera was so that everyone who bought one would run out an buy another one when the new improved ipad 2 comes out that has a camera.