Edible Apple

Seth Weintraub over at Computer World seems to think so.

This camera won’t be a point-and-shoot as much as it will be a digital photography computer.  Frankly, it isn’t hard to imagine the hardware.  Imagine an iPod Touch with a good camera and lens. That’s about it.

There have been some findings recently that back this theory of mine.  First, a French Apple sitesays they’ve heard that cameras are heading to the iPod line.  Also, Apple is said to be purchasing many three and fivemegapixel cameraCCDs from Omnivision for upcoming embedded products.  Most sources indicate that the 3MP cameras are going into next month’s iPhones.

Five Megapixel cameras are good enough to challenge entry-level point-and-clicks for still photography and at the same time record HD video.  This is the space being occupied by the FlipHD, and some other basic HD camcorders. 

I’m not sure if I buy into Weintraub’s theory.  The trend today is for all-in-one devices.  Releasing a “digital photography” based iPod doesn’t seem to fall in line with Apple’s product pipeline.  Also, similar functionality could easily be attained with a better lens on the iPod Touch coupled with digital photography apps currently available in the iTunes app store.

In a way, that’s the beauty of the app store.  It transforms the iPhone/iPod Touch into all-purpose devices in the broadest sense of the word, thereby negating the need for Apple to come out with differentiated hardware models that would essentially be superflous and un-necessary.