Apple announced a new line of music-playing iPods -- and one model now sports a video camera.
"The iPod nano is the most popular music player with more than 100 million sold," says Apple CEO Steve Jobs in the announcement. "Now we've added a video camera to its incredibly thin design, without any additional cost to the user."
The 8GB nano is $149, while the 16GB model is $179.
The iPod nano with built-in video camera also has a 2.2-inch display, microphone, and speaker, while maintaining a tiny size much smaller than competing camcorders. The nano measures just 3.6-by-1.5-by-0.24 inches, and weighs 1.28 ounces.
"The iPod nano video camera lets you record fun as it happens," Apple says. "Then, share it with friends on the internet. It's the video camera that's small enough to take everywhere."
The Apple camcorder lags in one key spec: Whereas everyone else is rushing to embrace HD, the nano video is H.264 1.5 Mbps video at 640-by-480 resolution -- not top of the line by any means; but, as Apple puts it, "the video file sizes are perfect for sharing on YouTube or emailing to friends." The iPod has a "special effects department included," Apple says, with 15 in-camera effects including mirror, X Ray, motion blur, and film grain.
Other features on the iPod include an FM radio with live pause capability, and a new built-in pedometer that keeps track of steps taken and calories burned. The nano does not capture still photos: video is forgiving of VGA resolution, while stills are not.
More than two decades ago, one of the first consumer digital cameras came from Apple -- long before the market or the technology was ready: the QuickTake was high-priced and low-powered. Eight years ago, the portable music player field was already seen by some as mature and saturated with me-too products. Apple entered with the iPod, and soon dominated the market.
Of late, pocket video cameras abound. The niche was started by Pure Digital with its Flip flash storage-based camcorder, and is contested by cameras from Sony, Kodak, Creative, and others.
Today, cameras are a mature technology in a crowded market. Pocket camcorders are a growing product field, but one for which pundits have long been predicting an early death any day now when other devices provide video capture. Those other devices? Phones and iPods.
With the iPhone, Apple already has the best-selling smart phone, and by some tallies such as Flickr's image uploading statistics, the iPhone is the most-used camera. The latest model added video capability. But as successful as the iPhone is, its sales don't come near those of the iPod line -- and so the new video-equipped nano may have an even greater impact on the video camera market.
For still photography however, we await a device like the rumored iPod Touch update, with a higher resolution camera and innovative features such as the touch-focus function. Freed of the carrier and pricing restrictions that hold back the iPhone, such a device could shake up the camera market.
September 7, 2009
