Ask HN: Why doesn’t Apple make a standalone camera? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why doesn’t Apple make a standalone camera?

7 pointsbigyikes13 comments

I’ve been wondering this a lot lately. Apple’s photo processing is just phenomenal. (You could probably say the same about other high end smartphone makers too)

Moreover, popular camera software and build quality is just solidly “okay” in my experience.

My thought is that if Apple were to produce full-size cameras, they would be far better than anything else on the market. I would probably buy one immediately.

I’m wondering why they haven’t done it. Maybe making cameras is really hard? Cameras are too much of a commodity and the market is really saturated? Full size lenses are hard? Not enough profit margins? Maybe it would cannibalize iPhone sales?

I’m curious to know what others think about a full-size Apple camera.

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>Maybe making cameras is really hard? Making cameras can't be that hard - every cell phone manufacturer puts at least something moderately decent into their offerings, and Canon, Nikon, etc make digital cameras across the quality spectrum

>Cameras are too much of a commodity and the market is really saturated? For most people ... why would you want YADTCA when you have a "good-enough" camera in your smartphone? If you can't take "good pictures" with your smartphone, you won't take pictures any better with a stand-alone camera - the camera is already better than you are (for 99% of camera users)

>Full size lenses are hard? Doubtful - if anything, they're easier than miniature lenses

>Not enough profit margins? Meh - you can make the margin [almost] as large as you want ... so long as customers will pay your price

>Maybe it would cannibalize iPhone sales? Again ... doubtful: if you want a separate camera, there are already fantastic options out there. And, back to a previous note, the camera in your smartphone is already better than you are

Apple basically quit doing anything to the iPod line because the iPhone, quite frankly, is a better device (even if you don't use it for a "phone") - storage, features, processing power, etc

If Apple were to venture into the standalone camera realm, it would have to be monumentally better than what they can already pack into an iPhone or iPad

An APS-C sensor would be enough to give the photos an entirely different quality than their current small sensors. But I think the issue is that the market isn't there for a really good consumer camera. Phones are good enough, bringing a camera is a hassle. And if they went for the professional photography market they'd have to also launch a range of peripherals.

>Phones are good enough, bringing a camera is a hassle

They more than just "good enough" ... heck - an "average" 4-6mp camera from 15 years is better than most people are taking pictures

Cameras are like firearms - the quality of the shot is almost exclusively related to the skill of the operator

A dedicated camera product based on smartphone parts is

https://owllabs.com/products/meeting-owl-pro

It is based on a fisheye lens, a sensor with an outrageous number of megapixels, and an SoC that can "digital zoom" on individual meeting participants.

Circa 2004 I sketched a design for something similar that could image a whole room (and would have used a curved mirror instead of a fisheye lens), but I estimated it needed 40 megapixels or so which was out of reach at the time.

To compete with

https://www.sony.com/tz/electronics/interchangeable-lens-cam...

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/digital-camera-mark...

$2.6B is not enough to be interesting to them. They just got to 1080p webcams last week, not particularly aggressive there.

As iPhones are being used in the film industry I could see a niche camera, like the Pro Display market. Perhaps a new market between a DSLR and Red. Something that would cost $5-10K and have 80% margins that every hip video person would want.

They tried it before, back in the 1990s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_QuickTake

[I used one at college. They were awful]

I could see them trying to make a larger sensor, mirrorless style camera, a la the Fuji X-Series, but I think the price would end up being just as much if not more than an iPhone 13 Pro. I would be very curious to see what they do but I don't think that price point is really competitive and I don't know how many photographers would be willing to jump into ANOTHER camera/lens system.

I think it'd make the most sense with a fixed, smartphone-type flat lens. There'd be more space to fit a lens so potentially there could be optical zoom like some phones already have. Interchangeable lenses would add no differentiation.

They probably make more money with iPhones + the app store as when people would buy cameras + dumbphones. Also I'm not sure there is a big market for compact cameras.

OTOH, Apple is so flush with cash, they could start a subsidiary in any product category with nonzero margin expectation and it would be a win. So there must be fear of canibalisation or of weekening their brand.

Cameras are expected to have removable batteries, lenses, and memory, clearly all 3 go against brand.

They are also expected to last more than a decade, again against brand.

They are supposed to give a best effort capture of reality, again against brand.

They are supposed to be repairable, again against brand.

> They are also expected to last more than a decade, again against brand.

Eh my 2013 MBP is coming up on that and can still compile my work's app (albeit slowly and with a lot of fan noise). The rest is correct though.

The Apple iPhone is already the top selling camera in the world. I don’t think they would really want to do anything to lose that title.

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