As if the idea of having an Apple-made car and standalone TV weren’t enough, it has come to light that late Steve Jobs also wanted to revolutionise photography with a standalone point-and-shoot camera under the banner of Apple. Supported by ample evidence, the huge possibility of Apple having started work on its very own camera is steadily sharing spotlight with other such Apple innovations, which are in infancy.
The rumour was highlighted in the release of iLounge’s New iPad Buyers’ Guide, which is an interesting tell-all magazine about the new iPad, earlier this week. The guide contains a two-pager on the alleged camera. According to iLounge, the speculations were made on the basis of evidence proclaimed from a certain source; hence reliability of the news was in question. However, the claim was made firm after Editor-in-Chief of the iLounge, Jeremy Horwitz, issued a Tweet and posted on the iLounge about the topic, which managed to strengthen rumours even more.
Instances where Jobs’ desire for the camera was revealed include Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs, where he claimed that Jobs wanted to reinvent three fields, namely, television, textbooks and photography. According to Adam Lashinsky, author of Inside Apple, Jobs had apparently met with Ren Ng, CEO of Lytro, the force behind an innovative light field camera system, in which the camera captures the entire light field and saves the information into a single editable file.
It cannot be ruled out that efforts for innovation in photography by Apple have been previously made, especially with the fact that Apple had once been associated with Kodak in the mid 90s to produce the QuickTake line of cameras. The product line was unfortunately discontinued when Steve Jobs was re-appointed as Apple chief, as he had other pending concerns for the company to look after. Apple has incorporated the iSight in its iPads and iPhones, which reaffirms belief in their endeavour for bringing innovation into photography.
With work that has already kicked off with respect to television and textbooks (the Apple iBooks Textbook initiative, and work on the iTV) perhaps the time has arrived to announce work on the point-and-shoot. What say, Apple?
Source: MacRumours