My original theory that Apple ruled out a camera in the iPad because they couldn’t figure out a way around the double-chin dilemma is starting to look sillier by the moment. Apple clearly intends to put a camera in the iPad… in the second generation. First-genners looking to video conference? You’re just out of luck.
Need more proof? Here’s the latest Apple job posting looking for a software quality engineer to exclusively work on video and image capture for the iPad Media Group.
The Media Systems team is looking for a software quality engineer with a strong technical background to test still, video and audio capture and playback frameworks. Build on your QA experience and knowledge of digital camera technology (still and video) to develop and maintain testing frameworks for both capture and playback pipelines…
Familiarity with and interest in photography, video as well as media file formats is highly desirable. Experience with tuning of and image pipeline, including, but not limited to AWB, Color Correction, AutoExposure, FrameRate adjustments is a plus.
At this point, the iPad’s lack of an iSight camera seems downright cynical: the addition of a camera to an iPad 2G makes it an easy upgrade over the first model for anyone hoping to video conference. There’s already space in the guts for an iSight camera module, and Apple clearly intends to put one in: they’re just hedging their bets and holding back a feature they could just as easily introduce now so they have something to entice people to upgrade later. Capitalistically understandable, perhaps, but it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
