Yesterday, I speculated that the reason Apple didn’t put a camera in the iPad was to help you look thin, but as many commenters mentioned, another possibility is that Apple had another supply chain breakdown, like the one that robbed the iPod Touch of its camera in June.
Maybe that’s right. Techcrunch spotted that the iPad SDK has reference in the Contacts app to taking photos with a built-in camera.
There’s a few interpretations here. This could just be a legacy feature, having to do with the fact that the iPad runs on the iPhone OS. It could also have to do with the iPad’s ability to connect to external cameras through an accessory. Or maybe the camera was pulled at the last minute, just like the iPod Touch’s.
My guess is it’s a legacy goof. What do you think?
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.
