Otaku Gadgets

You know when Apple refuses to comment on those bleeding obvious things that everyone’s pretty sure that they are going to (have to) do? Well, they are doing it again. This time it is the whole camera thing on the iPad. As in the lack of any sort of a camera. So it seems like that people who have inspected the hardware components of the iPad and developers who have been using the SDK, are all coming up with what they think are evidences of a planned camera that was probably killed at the last moment. No foul play is suspected, techies speculate cost being the primary motivation.

Also, you really have to leave something in there to puzzle us, tantalize us and then finally give us with an upgrade so that everyone feels like buying a new one. Planning an upgrade path is something Apple does pretty well.

So anyway, according the Mission: Repair blog, they have found evidence in the hardware components of the iPad that points towards a camera. There seems to be a metal frame inside the iPad that has a slot built into it that can hold an iSight camera, the kind used in MacBooks. They know because they successfully fitted on into it.

Software evidence comes from developers who have been working with new iPhone OS SDK that has the iPad development tools. It seems like the Contacts App on the iPad has an option during adding a contact to use an existing image or to take a photo. Obviously, you need to have a camera in-built to use this feature. Q.E.D — iPad is going to have a camera. Most are of the opinion that Apple simply could not fit the camera into the $499 budget and is possibly going to add on in the next upgrade.

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