Some evidence has come to light today which strongly suggests that the Cupertino Hivemind which runs Apple has decided that the next big thing for the iPod is a camera. Fact one is some leaked case designs for next version of the iPod Touch, which is to feature a hole in the back for a camera. Fact two is a source close to Michael Arrington of Techcrunch who claims that Apple has placed an order for cameras which could only possibly be used in iPods.
This could be very bad news for companies who make their bread and butter from non-enthusiast cameras. I’m not talking about the big guys which take beautiful pictures and 1080P video, but the little cameras that are meant for the small pockets of consumers. Now that the iPhone 3GS has a 3.2 megapixel camera, I know that I don’t carry around my old Nikon anymore. It’s an issue of convenience: if you can have on your person one gadget that functions well enough for you to feel like you don’t need the extra weight of another, you’re going to end up leaving the dedicated camera at home.
This is also pretty scary news for the people in the tiny video camera market, such as Flip Video (whose website plays music automatically – it’s 1998 all over again!). The iPhone 3GS can take video in a form that can be minorly edited and directly uploaded to YouTube, and the new Facebook application for iPod Touch and iPhone is set to allow users to upload to Facebook on the fly. Again, the video quality is good enough that many consumers are going to feel comfortable just taking video on their iPods, so Flip and other companies are going to have to come up with some pretty compelling reasons why you should use their products if they want to avoid losing a lot of market share.
Still, sources and rumors have been wrong before. It seems to me that these cameras could be destined for whatever Apple is planning to do with all those 10-inch touchscreens they bought earlier in the year. If those things are really destined to become Apple netbooks or tablet computers, it seems like these cameras could fill the role of webcams.
