Rear iPhone Camera Now Called iSight
by Brent Dirks
March 8, 2012
While Apple unveiled the new iPad with an iSight camera yesterday at its event in San Francisco, the new moniker is apparently being handed down to the majority of the iPhone line's rear cameras as well.
Apple now lists both the rear cameras for the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 as iSight. As pointed out by MacRumors, its not a big stretch to call all the cameras by the same name as the optical technology in all three are very similar.
The new iPad's rear camera is a big upgrade from the iPad 2's 0.7-megapixel version. As we reported yesterday, the iSight camera on the new iPad is 5 megapixels and has a five-element lens, an IR filter, auto exposure and auto focus. The camera will also shoot 1080p video, just like the iPhone 4S.
During the introduction yesterday, Apple's Phil Schiller talked a little bit about the reasoning behind the new name for the camera:
"On the back we have a camera, and when that camera gets of such quality and capability that you're proud to use it as your everyday camera for photographs, we call it an iSight camera. And the new iPad has a great iSight camera."The iSight name isn't a new one on Apple products. The integrated webcams on iMacs and MacBooks used to be referred to as iSight before the named changed to FaceTime and FaceTime HD. The less-than-ideal cameras of both the iPad 2 and iPhone 3GS are not listed with the new name. If you have preordered the new iPad, is the iSight camera one of the reasons you decided to purchase the new tablet? I'm excited about the new camera, but I don't know if I like the idea of consistently snapping photos with an iPad like I do on the iPhone 4S.