Many today were surprised that the iPod Nano, of all devices, received a fresh new video camera while the iPod Touch did not. Even more interesting is the fact that the Nano can only take video, and lacks any ability to take still photos. To get to the bottom of this conundrum, David Pogue of the NY Times sat down with Jobs asked him about it.
Jobs responded, saying:
The sensors for doing video are fairly thin. The sensors for doing a still camera, at much higher pixel resolution — and we’d really like to have autofocus — they are just way too thick to ever fit inside the Nano.
So there you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth.
September 26th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
will thy ever release one with a camera?”
or an update maybe?
September 28th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Hm, I’ve been looking for why this was so. Thanks. This was baffling me.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:09 pm
then how can the Iphone take pictures, i think it is a scam just so they could save money, in a year they’ll “create” a new one that will. and everyone will run and get it, even know apple just sold them a shit case AGAIN!!!trust me, they’ll do this over, and over again just because people will buy it..
think of it this way, you ran out to buy a new Ipod touch, just to find out it don’t have a camera, so you run and buy an Ipod nano, just to find out it DON’T TAKE PICTURES!!! and it repeats with the next ipod nane that will have the “ability” to take a picture, but their will be something else wrong with it…. companies started this back in the 20’s with cars saying the newer version was much,much better then the last version. companies intentionally do this to get better sales, which means more money for the company. if you wish to contact me about my theory my e-mail is limpfster94@gmail.com, out the subject as re:ipodnano
December 11th, 2009 at 6:39 am
Thats retarded.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Does iMovie let you grab frames from the video to save as a photo?
December 16th, 2009 at 4:14 am
i swapped my PDA for my first apple product, the iphone! which i love so much i went and bought my daughter an ipod nano with a view to changing all 3 of my home pc’s to apple as i had trust in the brand.
To find that the nano doesn’t have a camera is crazy.. the motorolla razor phone is slimmer yet a camera works just fine!
I think this is a marketing ploy and it sucks! at least microsoft look you dead in the eye when they’re are charging extortionate prices and don’t hide behind a load of waffle.
i dont mind paying extra for a better product, but i wont be apple’s gimp running to the shops at their every call.
i will be investing my money back into the good ol’ faithful Microsoft in future.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:06 pm
That’s a very poor explanation at best considering that video is typically nothing more than a “series” of still photos. In my opinion, the ability to take a still photo could have been incorporated very easily with little to no additional expense on Apple’s part and without requiring additional hardware added into the Nano. All they needed was to include some additional software to convert the first frame of a “single” frame video into a still photo format.
December 26th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
that makes absolutely no sense
January 1st, 2010 at 3:20 am
No, it makes sense. Yes, a video is a series of photos, but the are low quality photos. The iPhone utilises more expensive technology in that it can take good quality images with autofocus, but that is expensive. In order to maintain a profit (the whole point of the corporations existence) they would have to raise the price, and apple would lose its market of people who don’t need a fancy mp3 player but are buying an iPod to be “cool”, but only because the cost is relatively low for a device of its calibre. Adding a still camera would increase popularity by less than raising the price would reduce it… and that’s why i bought an iPhone.
January 1st, 2010 at 10:21 pm
It seems kind of goofy that they can’t do a “screen capture” of the running video and save that as a picture. It doesn’t need focus or zoom.. just whatever’s on the camera save the frame to a file.
January 3rd, 2010 at 2:35 pm
I believe that there is a way to make the new nano able to take still photos. I have been messing around with ipod operating systems for about 4 years now, and have added a few of my own features into quite a few ipods. I recieved a new ipod nano from a friend for my last christmas, and was put down because of the fact that the camera only does video’s. but I’m spending some free time trying to make a small compatible program to load onto the ipod to allow still photos to be taken. Ill be back once i have the solution to it all.