Jobs responds to iPod touch camera snub
In a curious omission, Apple neglected to include a video camera in the third-generation iPod touch announced yesterday. It's curious because the video camera from the iPhone 3GS successfully made the jump to the new fifth-generation iPod nano -- leapfrogging the iPod touch in the process.
Phil Schiller mentioned in his onstage presentation: that Apple is really pitching the iPod Touch as a game machine these days. And to do that, you have to make it as inexpensive as possible.
In an interview with The New York Times' David Pogue, Apple CEO Steve Jobs answered the question about the missing camera in the iPod touch, responding:
"Originally, we weren’t exactly sure how to market the Touch. Was it an iPhone without the phone? Was it a pocket computer? What happened was, what customers told us was, they started to see it as a game machine,” he said. “We started to market it that way, and it just took off. And now what we really see is it’s the lowest-cost way to the App Store, and that’s the big draw. So what we were focused on is just reducing the price to $199. We don’t need to add new stuff. We need to get the price down where everyone can afford it.”
So he's pitching the iPod touch's lack of video as a cost-savings measure, which is kind of a weak argument in my opinion. How many users, if given a $10 or $20 option, would pay a little more for the ability to record video? I'd hazard a guess that most would do it.
The more unusual thing is the iPod nano's ability to shoot video, but not still photos. When asked about this, Jobs noted that its a technical tradeoff with the still camera hardware's thicker profile.
That reason, he said, is technical: the sensors you need to record video are extremely thin these days—thin enough to fit into the wafer-thin Nano. But the ones with enough resolution for stills, especially with autofocus (like the sensor in the iPhone), are much too thick to cram into a player that’s only .02 inches thick.
In the interview Jobs also talks about e-book readers and how he's trying to put on weight. It's a good read.
Photo: NYT