Apple to move aggressively on FaceTime, camera-equipped iPads
Apple's iPad is unlikely to endure the company's traditional 12-month product cycle for iOS device refreshes before seeing its first major enhancements, AppleInsider has been told. — A version of the tablet device with a built …
Context & Ripple Effects
In July, Boy Genius Report laid out exactly how Apple's FaceTime would reach the iPod touch and iPad, and today's AppleInsider report adds a timeline claim: the tablet is unlikely to sit out the company's customary 12-month iOS refresh cycle before getting its first major update. Both reports point the same direction — a camera-equipped iPad — though neither carries Apple's confirmation, so the plan stays officially unconfirmed.
The significance is cadence as much as hardware. The iPad shipped earlier in 2010 without any cameras, and FaceTime so far lives on a single device; extending it across the iPod touch and iPad would turn video calling from an iPhone feature into a default capability of Apple's whole portable lineup.
First-order effects
- Prospective iPad buyers face a timing decision: a mid-cycle model with built-in cameras would undercut the resale value of the current camera-less unit within months of purchase.
- Apple's own product lines converge — an iPod touch with a front camera becomes a carrier-free FaceTime device, giving Apple a communications product that needs no phone contract.
Second-order effects
- Suppliers of compact camera modules win incremental volume as Apple qualifies front-facing cameras for devices beyond the iPhone, and the compressed timeline squeezes component lead times.
- Any tablet maker selling on front-mounted video-calling cameras loses that differentiator if FaceTime arrives on both the iPad and iPod touch at mass-market prices.
Third-order effects
- If Apple breaks its own 12-month rhythm for the iPad in launch year one, tablets inherit the faster annualized upgrade expectations that have governed phones — resetting how buyers time every tablet purchase.
- A FaceTime service spanning iPhone, iPod touch and iPad deepens Apple's walled-garden pattern — consistent with its blocking of Flash on the iPad and Ping's lack of Facebook connectivity — by making communications itself a lock-in layer.
The trend: Video calling is being promoted from a single-device feature to a platform-wide Apple capability, with the iPad's refresh cycle accelerating to match.