Apple’s new 3Gs is the most useful video camera in the world today, says TechCrunch. Apple may sell 20 million or so of them in 2009.
If Apple added cameras to its line of iPods, there would be another 3+million of them hitting the market per month, and the low end of the digital video camera market could be crushed.
Uh oh.
That’s exactly what we’re hearing is going to happen. One of our sources in Asia say that Apple has placed an order for a massive number of camera modules of the type that they include in the iPhone. These are inexpensive cameras, in the $10 range. And the size of the order, our source says, means they can only be used for one thing – the iPods.
The iPod touch starts at $229, and if they add the camera module, turning on video is a no-brainer, particularly since the software, already working on the iPhone, is ready to go.
That’s exactly the same price as the high end Flip Mino HD that we gush about so often. The Flip will take marginally better video, but it doesn’t have on-device editing and uploading to YouTube. Nor does it support Internet browsing, email and the thousands of games and other apps available for the iPod Touch.
Ustream and Qik have mobile video webcasting solutions. At Portland’s Waterfront Blues Festival this weekend, I ran a Logitech 9000 webcam into a Asus 1000 HE netbook with a Clear WiMAX card using Livecast. I also provided free WiFi via Meraki and a Clear WiMAX client for backhaul.
While the WiFi worked okay, my little experiment in livecasting resulted in no usable video. I had not spent enough time with my new camera or the software to provide even passable audio (although the video looked fine). My 1 GB Asus netbook was overstressed, too. A dual core laptop (with lots of extra batteries) is probably required to deliver functionality (on the recording end) and better quality (on the receiving end). It turned out to be something of an embarrassing little exercise with no hint of production value on my part. Thankfully, I wasn’t charging anyone for this experiment.
But when the Blues Fest website linked to the Livecast page, the Livecast server may have overloaded their site.
Imagine the impact 50 million livecasting smartphones will soon have on venues and infrastructure.
The world’s infrastructure may simply not be ready. Soon, livecasting smartphones are going to be clamped to every stage scaffold and uploaded by every smartphone toting fan. It will be a tsunami.
Related Dailywireless stories include Super Bowl XLIII, The 2008 Summer Olympics, The Magic Bus, The Virtual Set, Election Web Coverage , Live Mobile Coverage, Super Bowl XLII, WiMAX for TV Remote Feeds, Mobile WiMAX: Live in Idaho Falls, Mobile Livecasting, Webcasting Concerts, Emergency Communications Applications, Emergency Communications SimDay, CNN’s News Bureau in a Bus, WiFi Camera Adapters, Geocoding Content, Minneapolis Bridge Collapse & Emergency Communications, Kyocera KR2 Mobile Router, Mobile Mashup and Morphing Sports to Games – Live.
