How did this slip under the radar?!

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This morning while in the shower I came up with a brilliant idea - a digital camera (photo and video) with a built in hard disk and scroll wheel. It could double as a portable video player and had heaps of other unique and fascinating features.

Then on a whim, I ran a search for "digital camera hard drive" through Google and found out that it's (mostly) already been done. :)

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/ArticlesByTopic/HI-FIAndSound/MP3Players/1758

Kap

P.S. And another shock - it's being released in Australia! (first time in the world we've ever gotten an interesting gadget before the rest of the world).
 
Semi-pro/pro video cameras have had hard drive options for a couple of years now. It's a natural progression to the consumer end to start using them as well, plus add in all the consumery stuff like music/voice/etc.

Either way, I have been heralding the end of tape for about five years now, so it's great to finally see it happening. It will be a great day when I can wake up and never have to use tape media again.
 
I've been saying to my friends for nearly a year now that Apple should incorporate a digital camera in to the iPod form factor. A hard drive based digital camera is a no brainer. Ditto for Firewire. It address the two remaining issues with digital photography. First, removable media is expensive and limited to at most, about 1GB for compact flash, and about 512MB for many of the other formats. Second, most cameras still use USB 1.0 to transfer the images, which is dreadfully slow. Firewire is a much better option than USB 2.0, because of the large number of pro devices that use Firewire.

The iPod form factor is perfect for a digital camera. Turn it on it's side, add a lens to the metallic side, a voila - perfectly sized digital camera with huge storage capacity and fast transfer rates. With the other additions to the iPod Photo, you have a "mini platform" for your digital picture. Apple could even add the ability to crop and fix red eye right on the camera itself.

I'm still waiting for Apple to jump in to this space of course. I do think the iPod Photo is a step in this direction. Hopefully Apple will beat the other players to market with this idea, because whether Apple does it or not, hard drive based digital cameras are the next big thing.
 
Where is the demand?

*tumble weed rolls by*

there isn't a demand for a digital camera iPod, phone iPod, or Video iPod from a large majority of consumers.

*squirrel eats a nut*

We complain about bloated software what about hardware? It would be cool if Apple released these devices seperately because it makes it simples like the iPod! haha!
 
serpicolugnut said:
I've been saying to my friends for nearly a year now that Apple should incorporate a digital camera in to the iPod form factor. A hard drive based digital camera is a no brainer.
Click to expand...
The "ah ha" for me with this idea wasn't so much putting a hard drive directly into a camera. It was the realisation that a digital camera (with mpeg viewing/recording capability) IS a portable video player.

Interesting sidenote: I tried experimenting with this idea further by putting an mpeg video from my Mac onto my Sony DSC T1 camera, but the camera wouldn't play the video :( (actually, it couldn't even see the video)

Kap

P.S. I'll post my "specs" for this Apple camera and the things that make it interesting later today or tomorrow. For now, gotta head off.
 
I think consumer demand, much like ApeintheShell said, is a big factor in what gets produced and what gets axed at the drawing board.

Sure, Apple could add video functionality to the iPod, but the cost would be out of the range of most consumers, making it a loss instead of a gain. Also, tiny video isn't in demand. Wide-screen, plasma-display, flat-screen, hi-def TVs are in. BIG, movie-like, THX, theater-experience video is in. Not portable, tiny MPEG video on a 2" screen.

It'd be wonderful if I could pop a slice of bread into my TV while I'm watching re-runs of "Married with Children" and have a slice of toast in less time than it takes to watch a commercial, but again... where's the demand? Bloated hardware fails. Watch and see with the Microsoft media center-thingy.

I do see a trend away from solid-state storage devices into tinier hard-drive devices, and I'm sure that some great company like Sony or Canon or Nikon will perfect that technology. It isn't Apple's job to do so, nor is it really in their interest. Plenty of other companies do it better than Apple can do it -- which can't be said for portable music devices. Apple saw that music devices were being done all wrong in the industry and stepped up to correct the wrongs. Sony, Nikon and Canon aren't doing digital photography wrong, though, so it would be a loss for Apple to try and compete there (on the contrary, they do it quite well). All Apple can do is improve iPhoto and iMovie to help on the editing and distributon end of things concerning photos and video.
 
I think Apple is very shy to re-enter the Digital Camera market. Every school I know had a Quicktake camera, but I'm yet to meet a single non-Applevangelist consumer who even knew Apple produced Digital Cameras.

And there are plenty of point-and-click cameras in almost precisely the iPod form-factor. The problem is, the cost of a hard-drive camera is prohibitive for the usual consumer, and the quality of a small form-factor camera isn't adequate for a pro - it's between two markets.

You'd sell a number of them, but they're just not perfect for filling a hole, like the iPod was.
 
There has to be a camera for the Photo iPod comming soon, and video is just around the corner for sure.

But its kinda confusing. A "portable device" that shows pictures and can't take them? the process to get pictures on there almost defeats the purpos of having the iPod photo in the first place. It's almost like apple dosent want this to be a real success! but mearly a test.

i went to the store today and said do i really need this? do i? and if i did i can't have fun by taking pictures anyway.

Think of it like this:

Your at a party/event and you have your Photo iPod, mobile phone, digital camera, pda or whatever else. You take all these really great pictures on your Digital camera. But then you have to go home to transfer them first then come back so you can put them on the tv screens, etc. Enoying!

Why didn't they put a lens in it???? even if an adapter came out it would still be another thing to carry.

confused...
 
Apple doesn't want the iPod to be an iDoAll-Godzilla kind of device. And quite apparently, Apple doesn't want the iPod to record any kind of media out of the box. You can't jot down notes on it, you can't record your voice or FM radio (yes, with an external mono mic that's _quite_ bad...) and you can't take photos or record video. It'll probably still be a "play only" device when video gets on the iPod...

Remember: Apple wants the Mac to be the hub of your digital lifestyle. And Steve thinks that's where others are wrong.

Still: I'd like an iPod Photo (although I don't care for the photo part of it, just the colour screen would be enough for me) that also could record voice in stereo. Gosh, I could finally record those poetry readings. And the interviews. I don't like to take an MD-recorder to those. But: The iPod's a player.
 
I like the idea of just having lots of different components you connect together, rather than an all in one device. I'm not really in with the idea of the iPod having a colour screen, personally I think it should have a very basic screen, if you want more you get the iSceen to go along with it. You could then use it as the storage device for your iSnap or iFilm cameras which would attach seemlessly to the iPod and make use of the iScreen to show picture etc.

That's what I'd like to see. These all in one gizomos piss me off, especially as they never do everything and they do most things badly. You end up with a load of different devices, loads of them with a camera, calendar, address book, MP3 playback, alarm, phone, etc, etc...

It's like everytime something new comes out these days they think "oh - throw in a cheap camera and MP3 playback, that'll help it sell". It's crazy!
 
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