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Apple's next product line, a point and shoot camera?

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AmazingDM

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I don't know why I never thought of this before, and honestly for a long time I thought they'd put cameras on their next iPod Nanos, but it really dawned on me that Apple could really make a killing by putting a large dent in the point and shoot camera market.

By actually making a dedicated camera with the Apple brand (maybe with 8gb or 16gb internal storage like the iPod Nanos, which would be plenty), they can have two different products that people would buy at the same time (ipods and icameras), they aren't limited by a very tiny size (although it would have to be portable like current p&s cameras), and while it could have an mp3 player builtin, it wouldn't be competition for current iPods.

They'd probably use a touchscreen since that's their trend at the moment.

Anyone think this is what will happen?
 

Surf Monkey

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For one thing, Apple already tried this with the QuickTake cameras. They failed.

For another, Canon and Nikon DOMINATE the point and shoot product category. Panasonic, Casio, Olympus, Pentax, Fuji and a half a dozen others are not far behind. The idea that Apple would get into that kind of already flooded market space is absurd. There's simply no way they would be able to compete. Nikon and Canon have resources that would put Apple to shame. They have huge manufacturing facilities, major R&D funded by countless millions of dollars, tons of product in the pipeline stretching years into the future, solid and successful track records going back not just years but generations, rabidly loyal customer bases that make the Apple faithful look like rank amateurs, hundreds of thousands of employees world wide, an established distribution channel, rock solid relationships with every major camera vendor... the list goes on and on.

The probability of Apple doing this, let alone being successful at is is nil. They'd have a better shot at building a successful car than they would at building a successful point and shoot camera.
 
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ReyZero

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This topic was already argued quite a bit, and simple answer is, Apple probably won't create a stand alone camera on their own
 

Jimmy97

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That's probably cause there's no room for penetration, as Surf said. The point-and-shoot cameras don't have much room for improvement, either. There's a lot of great ones out there and while Apple could come up with an iPhone-like marketing strategy, it's likely people won't give a damn because they're more than satisfied with their own cameras. So in short, sure they could enter it, maybe make a profit off it, but definitely can't dominate the whole market with one camera like they did with the iPod or iPhone.
 

Surf Monkey

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Not only can't they dominate it, they wouldn't even make a blip. Nikon and Canon would crush Apple in the wink of an eye. It would be like Nikon or Canon deciding to build an MP3 player, a computer or a phone. Won't happen, and if it did, they'd get laughed off the stage.
 

Jimmy97

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Not the exact same seeing as Apple is a multi-tech company while Nikon and Canon only make cameras as far as I know, but yeah, I see your point. Wouldn't completely rule out the possibility that they could enter the market though, knowing Apple's ability to create hype.
 

Surf Monkey

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Nikon and Canon make more than cameras. Nikon makes a huge range of medical equipment, binoculars, scientific instruments, silicon ASICs and more. Canon makes printers, scanners, video projectors, calculators, micro processors, medical equipment, motion control systems... the list goes on. Both of these companies make a whole range of things that Apple buys from third parties. Make them. In house. Apple only manufactures a very small portion of the products they sell. Most of their manufacturing is farmed out to smaller companies. Apple is a design and software development firm.

See, that's the thing. Both of these companies have massive manufacturing and distribution systems that reach well beyond just cameras and optics. They're both vastly more diversified than Apple. Furthermore, it's arguable that Canon and Nikon are both able to create just as much hype as Apple is. Have you ever visited any of the Nikon boards in the weeks before new product announcements? Have you ever seen the lines that form at camera stores when new Canon DSLRs hit the street?

Seriously. Nikon and Canon aren't just some single product niche companies. They're MASSIVE multi-nationals that dominate multiple areas of manufacturing, marketing and more.

Apple wouldn't have a chance in hell of competing with either of them or with the other dozen camera makers. As I said before, they tried with the QuickTake cameras and were unceremoniously dumped on their ### in short order.
 

AmazingDM

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I don't think that's very true

if Canon and Nikon went out and made mp3 players, no one would really care or flock to them (just like nobody is flocking to Sony's Walkmen). However, if Apple went and made a camera, everyone would go buy it because Apple is this huge marketing entity and people follow them and buy their stuff just because it's apple. The camera enthusiasts aren't going to go for them, but everyone who wasn't even in the market for a camera will.
 

Germansuplex

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I don't see this happening. Apple has dominated the portable media market because they built a great device early-on when the market was there for the taking. As Surf Monkey mentioned, the camera market is pretty much cornered and I just don't see the appeal in an Apple-branded camera, as good as it may be.

Apple is best off sticking to the phone, home computer and PMP market.

As good as their products are, they still have a lot of room for improvement.
 

ThisisCraigP

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I don't think so. I don't see Apple putting a camera on the Nano either. Putting one on the touch makes a lot more sense.
 

Surf Monkey

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Germansuplex has it right. Look at the markets Apple has entered. The MP3 player market was relatively young and featured a lot of devices that were hard to use, huge and counter intuitive. Perfect grist for Apple's design engineers. The phone market, while very mature, was suffering from the same problems. Phones that were ugly, hard to use and counter intuitive.

Cameras don't suffer from these problems at all. Canon and Nikon have beautiful and easy to use interfaces. They have innovative and attractive hardware. They have rabid followings and long track records of success. The one thing they don't have is intuitive and easy to use desktop software... which is why iPhoto exists.

There's no way Apple is going to get into dedicated cameras. No way, no how. It's not the kind of market they target.

Now, there is a market out there that EXACTLY fits Apple's typical target: netbooks. Currently they're all ugly, hard to use and far less popular than they could be.

There's also an emerging market that Apple is bound to target sooner or later too. E-readers.

Both of those markets are ripe for Apple to make a play. Cameras? Impossible dream. The most Apple will ever do in this area is continue to upgrade the ones the put on their phones (and possibly media players.) They'd be fools to waste money and resources on a stand alone point and shoot.
 

AmazingDM

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surf monkey you really honestly have no clue what you are talking about do you? I mean seriously.
How close minded do you have to be

Apple just went into the phone market and swept up..

I love you people are so convinced you know what apple is going to do
 
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ReyZero

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Apple already had the OS, they decided to shrink it to accompany their iPod and adding the phone wasn't rocket science.
Smartphones were out before Apple was making an iPhone, they just took a crack at it and made something people wanted.
Now unless people are extremely looking for a multi-touch camera, I don't see them taking over the market. Maybe asking another company to put an iPhoto or whatever Apple's photo program is in a Canon camera would be pretty slick, but even that wouldn't be something I'd be interested in purchasing.
Real question is how close minded do you have to be to think everything Apple makes is going to dominate the market. I was never once interested in an iPod, and my only move to purchase an iPhone was getting a phone that actually had a decent music player (iPod + Phone, not Phone + iPod)
Macs are 2-3x their worth, and the only reason I got a Shuffle was to stay with 1 sync program and just use auto-fill. The 3G shuffle made me laugh to hard.

The only Apple product I'd consider after my iPhone would be an Apple Tablet with full multi-touch with a 6" screen or so.
Nothing to large, but something light and easy to view documents on the go. Showing people excel sheets, facts, that kind of stuff. I don't much care for any of the current Tablets, I have one and it's honestly not that bad, it just doesn't have enough juice to run fast. Don't want a net book either, I have an iPhone
Forgot to mention, they need to price it around $750 for decent specs, which I seriously doubt seeing as the iPod touch is $500ish and the Air was $2000+.
 

Surf Monkey

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surf monkey you really honestly have no clue what you are talking about do you? I mean seriously.
How close minded do you have to be

Apple just went into the phone market and swept up..

I love you people are so convinced you know what apple is going to do
Pardon me, and with all due respect, but you make yourself look like an idiot when you say stuff like that, AmazingDM. Nothing I've said can't be verified by looking around the Web. Furthermore, I've been a professional photographer for over 20 years. I probably know more about this subject than most of the people who post on this board.

If you really think Apple could do with cameras what they did with MP3 players, you need to have your head examined.
 
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Jimmy97

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I personally have a Sony touch screen camera, and it's actually pretty good considering. Photo quality isn't all that great but it's not that bad for a point-and-shoot and the interface is pretty slick. So no, Apple can't improve much on this. I agree with what Surf said about Apple liking to dominate markets. It's their fault they lost the PC one. Doubt they'll make that mistake again. If Apple can't be number 1 in a market, they probably won't enter it.

I'd just like to add that I do see Apple using the same marketing strategy for the iPhone camera as they're doing for the game market - someday. If they ever manage to crank it up to 5MP in that slim a device, with great photo quality (all things considered, the iPhone's camera quality is pretty good.) That way, they'd be promoting their phone, but not exactly entering the camera market.
 

Surf Monkey

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Megapixels are meaningless. The problem with the iPhone camera isn't the chip. The problem is the miniscule lens. As long as they stick with a lens that's 1/4 the size of your pinky fingernail, it'll produce crap pictures. The only way to get good images is to use good (and large) glass and gather lots of light onto the chip. All megapixels do are allow you to print a larger picture. They have nothing to do with image quality.

Unless Apple radically redesigns the iPhone, they're probably never going to put a big lens on it, therefore it's probably never going to take very good pictures. The iPhone camera is just a toy.
 

Jimmy97

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Yeah I'm well aware but if they even want to get competitive, megapixels are the first thing people look at to decide what camera's better. Hey don't blame me, I think it's just as stupid as you do.
But for a point and shoot? Heck the image quality on the 3GS is better than my Sony camera. But then again my Sony camera doesn't exactly have the best image quality around either...
And yeah Apple's never making the lens much bigger it'll detract from the slimness/beauty of the iPhone.
 
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