iPod's getting eyes?

It's been rumoured for a while now that Apple are planning on introducing cameras to their iPod range with the latest rumour suggesting that a 'massive' order for camera modules has been placed fairly recently. This seems to make an awful lot of sense to me and would, if these reports are accurate, give Apple a good solid platform when they refresh the iPod line in September.

Firstly, consider that back in January this year Apple made one of the major changes to their iPhoto software package geotagging of images. Sure it's a nice feature to have and their implementation is very slick (as you'd expect from Apple) but why put so much emphasis on it if you weren't planning to introducing hardware that makes use of it? Yes, the iPhone could and does do just this but it wouldn't seem like a great stretch of imagination for Apple to tie everything together at their next press conference with a suitably grand proclomation.

Next, the portable video market (well, okay, the youtube market) has shown itself to be fairly succesfull with the Flip range of recorders in particular proving very popular over the last year or two. When you look at that hardware you're paying around £80 to £100 for, basically, a couple of gig of storage space, an LCD viewfinder, a battery and a not-really-very-good lens / sensor combination. The resulting video isn't exactly professional quality but is good enough for youtube or other internet applications. Now consider what an iPod actually is... it's a screen, storage space and battery coupled to a headphone jack. Adding a lens would be a relatively cheap extra and would open up a whole new market segment for Apple

Finally, even on the basic Nano devices you could potentially have something that'd compare well with these low-end video cameras. On the touch, with its superb internet browser and potential for applications, you'd have a device that could potentially slaughter the current range of cheap video cameras and include a vast range of functionality that's goes far beyond a single purpose device, all in a form factor that can be easily slipped into a pocket. With (hopefully) up to 64Gb of storage space to play with you'd be able to record a LOT of video without worrying about having to offload it and, assuming Apple included the GPS capabilities of the iPhone in the next iPod Touch, you'd be able to take advantage of geotagging as well.

Of course you can expect the usual wailing from the geek crowd about quality and how we all carry mobile phones that do the exact same thing but, as usual, they're missing the point. It's not about getting the best possible quality but about getting good enough quality wrapped up in a user experience that people enjoy and actually want to use. There's something very compelling about delivering an end-to-end experience in the way Apple are now doing with the iPhone and, make no mistake, it's something that WILL appeal to the masses.

It would, to my mind, make an awful lot of sense for Apple to go in this direction. They've already got the software on the Touch side, they've got the applications on OS X to support it and they seem to have a 'good enough' quality 3Mp camera on the iPhone that should be simple to graft into the iPod Touch if they want to. There'd be a minimum cost increase in production and it'd be a fairly unique selling point in the media player space. Add in Apple's ability to sell tech that's been around for a while as if it's the latest and greatest and they may have a winner on their hands IF this rumour is true.