Moreover, popular camera software and build quality is just solidly “okay” in my experience.
My thought is that if Apple were to produce full-size cameras, they would be far better than anything else on the market. I would probably buy one immediately.
I’m wondering why they haven’t done it. Maybe making cameras is really hard? Cameras are too much of a commodity and the market is really saturated? Full size lenses are hard? Not enough profit margins? Maybe it would cannibalize iPhone sales?
I’m curious to know what others think about a full-size Apple camera.
>Cameras are too much of a commodity and the market is really saturated? For most people ... why would you want YADTCA when you have a "good-enough" camera in your smartphone? If you can't take "good pictures" with your smartphone, you won't take pictures any better with a stand-alone camera - the camera is already better than you are (for 99% of camera users)
>Full size lenses are hard? Doubtful - if anything, they're easier than miniature lenses
>Not enough profit margins? Meh - you can make the margin [almost] as large as you want ... so long as customers will pay your price
>Maybe it would cannibalize iPhone sales? Again ... doubtful: if you want a separate camera, there are already fantastic options out there. And, back to a previous note, the camera in your smartphone is already better than you are
Apple basically quit doing anything to the iPod line because the iPhone, quite frankly, is a better device (even if you don't use it for a "phone") - storage, features, processing power, etc
If Apple were to venture into the standalone camera realm, it would have to be monumentally better than what they can already pack into an iPhone or iPad
https://owllabs.com/products/meeting-owl-pro
It is based on a fisheye lens, a sensor with an outrageous number of megapixels, and an SoC that can "digital zoom" on individual meeting participants.
Circa 2004 I sketched a design for something similar that could image a whole room (and would have used a curved mirror instead of a fisheye lens), but I estimated it needed 40 megapixels or so which was out of reach at the time.
$2.6B is not enough to be interesting to them. They just got to 1080p webcams last week, not particularly aggressive there.
As iPhones are being used in the film industry I could see a niche camera, like the Pro Display market. Perhaps a new market between a DSLR and Red. Something that would cost $5-10K and have 80% margins that every hip video person would want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_QuickTake
[I used one at college. They were awful]
OTOH, Apple is so flush with cash, they could start a subsidiary in any product category with nonzero margin expectation and it would be a win. So there must be fear of canibalisation or of weekening their brand.
They are also expected to last more than a decade, again against brand.
They are supposed to give a best effort capture of reality, again against brand.
They are supposed to be repairable, again against brand.