News tagged ‘front camera’

There are lots of rumors about forthcoming second-gen iPad hardware. The iPad 2 is expected to be slimmer and lighter, with a larger speaker and an improved display designed to deliver a better experience in bright sunlight.  It will likely run on a 1.2GHz, dual-core, ARM Cortex-A9 chip and Imagination’s SGX543 GPU architecture. The new iPad probably will support both GSM and CDMA thank to the Qualcomm chip. It will have double the RAM–512MB, same as the iPhone 4, as well as front camera for FaceTime and Photo Booth and back-facing one for POV FaceTime and shooting photos and video.

Alongside the new iPad Apple may also announce iOS 5 preview at the event. iOS 5 is expected to have new voice navigation, maps application and certainly Cloud/MobileMe/iWork/iLife integration, and updated notifications.

Kara Swisher from All Things D reported yesterday that the iPad 2 will be unveiled on March 2, most likely at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which became the common place for Apple media events.

Citing multiple sources she added that the invitations will be sent by Apple soon. No other details were unveiled.

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Engadget have posed a very interesting comparison table of the most interesting tablets that are known today. Have a look at specifications for HP TouchPad, Apple iPad, Motorola Xoom and BlackBerry PlayBook. Unfortunately there is no Apple iPad 2 in this table, becasue iPad 2 specs are all just rumors for now.

HP TouchPad

Apple iPad

Motorola Xoom

BlackBerry PlayBook

Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has recently released another report, where he states that the next-gen iPad won't get new resolution this year.

"The most important reason why iPad 2 won’t have retinal display is yield rate of panel making. At this point, making high resolution and bright IPS/FFS panel is not easy and the production volume and cost couldn’t meet Apple’s requirements."

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Foxconn, manufacturer of the iPad, reports that it plans to begin shipping the iPad 2 within the next 100 days. The initial shipment will be approximately 400,000-600,000 units. Apple reportedly planed to start mass production of the next-generation tablets in January,2011, but they had to postpone it, because of the ongoing testing of the new iPad's firmware. Of course, Apple will decrease the production of the original tablets to prepare market and users for a launch of new device.  The next-gen iPad is rumored to be equipped with the FaceTime front camera, will support both GSM and CDMA standards, allowing it to work on a variety of networks.

After several weeks of rumors concerning the future iPhone 4G (iPhone HD), it's internal components, memory and all the features, the guys from AppAdvice decided to create an image that sums up everything we know so far.

The iPhone is called iPhone HD and the specs are placed on a page similar to the Apple site.

iPhone HD will have a display with higher resolution of 960×640 pixels, 5 MP camera, flash, autofocus, video recording at 720p, iChat with a 2 MP front camera, 256 or 512 MB of RAM, better connectivity and more battery life.

A popular tech pundit John Gruber from the DaringFireball.net web-resource laughs at today's WSJ rumor about two new iPhone models coming this summer. He points at the lack of information in the article and hints at the features that he seems to know about:

"...And they have no actual details of the next-generation iPhone. Nothing. Not the A4-family CPU system-on-a-chip. Not the 960 × 640 double-resolution display. Not the second front-facing camera. Not even the third-party multitasking in iPhone OS 4."

Well, the multitasking and front camera were suggested before. But the higher resolution display is something new.

Here is a new concept for the iPhone 4G created by user JCross:

In some ways we can consider it as a small version of the iPad. However it looks more like an iPhone. The screen is slightly larger and there is also space for the front camera. Do you like it?

Apple recently released iPad/iPhone OS 3.2 Beta 4 to developers. Let's see what's new:

1. Application "Photos" has been improved. Here is text from official changelog:

"Launching the Photos application under the iPad Simulator will initially show three tabs: Photos, Albums, and Camera. The Camera tab represents photos available via the Camera Connection Kit for iPad, and is not relevant for the Simulator. The Camera tab will disappear after a few seconds. "

Apple actually specified what we had seen in 3.2 beta 3. The tab Camera is for the Camera Connection Kit, and does not indicate any front camera on the iPad.

The fonts have been also improved and there are some new Gestures added for images.

2. The function Add Bookmark in Safari browser works now (previously only allowed to link to home).

3. When you press the button twice on the lockscreen the iPod controls appear, just like on the iPhone:

4. With the iPad simulator is open, pressing "cmd + shift + space bar" will appear a list of languages. By pressing the space bar you can change language:

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Macrumors found interesting information in the latest Beta 3 iPad SDK. Apple's private framework which controls the camera, has 3 additional camera characteristics that are not found in the iPhone 3.x SDK:

It looks like Apple built in API support to test if your iPad had a Front Facing Camera, Zoom and a Camera Flash. The front facing camera could be used for video chat, while Zoom and Camera Flash are often requested features for the iPhone's back camera.

9to5Mac made further investigation and found the following icons which clearly show an interface to accept or decline a video chat:

The size of these buttons show that they will be used on the the iPad's screen rather than the iPhone.

It is still unknown, if these new features will be available in the first version of iPad. We hope to see them in future versions of the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

Apple released the third beta of the iPhone 3.2 SDK for iPad. There are no official reports on what changes are included in the update. Here are several screenshots: the newly included Photos app and the Camera tab in the same application:

Rumors that iPad could have a camera have been around for a while. These new photos might be one more evidence.However the iPad has a USB interface for camera and SD card reader, so this might just be the interface for importing pictures.

Update: According to MacRumors Apple pulled the Beta 3 release shortly after its initial release due to a major bug.

Update2: It's back.

Update3:

• iPad SDK 3.2 Beta 3 Photos.app video walk-through
• iPad SDK adds ability to set home screen wallpaper
• Front Camera, Flash, Zoom and Video Conferencing found in latest SDK

Here is one more iPhone 4G concept from Antonio De Rosa. It looks particularly beautiful. This is a 3D rendering and I advise you to zoom the images to appreciate the quality of the details:

The device has a new AMOLED screen, an aluminum body, a front camera and of course the iPhone OS 4.0.

There are so many iPhone 4G concepts created by different our users. Some show futuristic devices that are hard to create, while others are closer to reality.

Today we have an interesting concept designed by Francesco Maisano. It shows iPhone with more rounded design than the current one. We can also see some implementation of the future Firmware 4.0 - a special SpringBoard with Widgets for weather, calendar and clock. As for hardware there is a front camera, a flash for main camera, an intelligent Home button and much more. Take a look:

The question about the iPad's front camera is really a mystery. Several days ago some developer found an evidence in iPad's firmware 3.2. Today ispazio found a new confirmation - an image from the Apple's Keynote on January 27, when Steve takes the iPad and shows it to the public. At some point the screen reflects the light and you can clearly see that there is something that looks like the camera, but could be just the light sensor.

As always before the release of a new device many designers and regular users make interesting concepts. Here is a new one for iPhone 4G:

The author also provided a probability percentage value for each functionality of seeing it actually implemented:

• Removable battery (30% probability)
• Flash LED (50%)
• Back (Case) touchscreen, like the surface of the Magic Mouse (75%)
• Front camera (70%)
• Contacts on the Home Screen, as shown by a recent patent (70%)
• 64GB flash memory (60%)
• Dual-core processor and more RAM (80%)
• OLED display (90%)