Everyone, including Steve Jobs, has very reasonable sounding theories as to why the third gen iPod touch camera was removed. Rather than rehash it again, however, we thought we’d let our minds wonder into parody, and consider what might have happened in a world only slightly more cartoonish than ours…

Steve Jobs, fresh from his recent leave of absence, comes crashing back into Apple’s Cupertino campus, and after fixing the typography on the iPhone 3G S 3GS, tweaking some pixels on the Snow Leopard UI, and spending time meditating deep in the iTablet vault, he heads over to the scorched closet that used to be reserved for iPhone A2DP testing…

“64GB a go?” he demands. “Good”

“Is it thinner?” grumble. “Next year…”

“What about those ultra-tiny auto-focus 3 megapixel sensors we received?” Massive frown. “They don’t work? Not any of them? Then what’s this prototype using?”

The room goes dead silent.

“The iPod nano VGA camera? In a premium, flagship product, that runs the iPhone OS and supports gorgeous stills and breathtaking video?”

The silence is broken by the sound of the iPod touch with camera prototype ricochetting off the head of the hapless white-coat who had the temerity to offer it up.

“Yank it, bozos.” Jobs strides from the room, Dark Force lightning blistering the air around him. “And let’s try to raise the intelligence in this room by next spring, shall we?”

And, boom, no camera, not even a nano-style VGA one in the iPod touch this fall. If that’s the case, however, it’s hard to argue with Jobs (or whomever made the final decision?) that an iPod touch class device demands an iPhone 3GS, and not iPod nano class camera.

That’s not the way Apple plays cricket. They don’t do choppy 15-frame a second video on the iPhone 3G, and they won’t put a nano camera in the iPod touch.

[via Engadget and Macrumors]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Why the iPod touch G3 Camera was Yanked, and Rightly So

With Apple consolidating its Apple TV offerings this morning down to a single 160GB SKU at a lower $229 price point, we’re once again split between Apple axing their “hobby” or giving it a much-needed refresh.

If Apple does axe the Apple TV, however, something would need to take its place in the living room. Could that something be the iPhone 3GS and iPod touch G3 and the still-mythic iTablet? Dock them properly to an HD TV, and could you have a solution with one heck of a built in controller?

We know the iPhone (and likely new iPod touch) can support 720p and 1080p out. We even hoped Apple would flip the switch on that feature last week in order to better position themselves competitively against the about-to-ship Zune HD. They could still flip it at some point, however, along with introducing new HDMI-based video output cables.

This would go a long way towards showing iPhone and iPod touch content on the big screen, but right now one of the Apple TV’s strengths is streaming rather than just storing and showing. You can attach an Apple TV to your HD TV and, without any local content, stream all the iTunes media you have on your Mac or Windows PC, and the potentially 2TB drives that can now attach to those (or more with RAID, Drobo, etc.)

Neither iPhone nor iPod have ethernet, and both are stuck on the older, slower 802.11g Wi-Fi standard (though the iPod touch G3 might be updatable to 802.11n).

That’s where an iTablet, presumably with much beefier internals and faster Wi-Fi (though we still doubt ethernet) comes in. Apple could position it as a dock-at-home, take it with you on-the-go solution.

Of course, whether you’d want to lock your iTablet to a TV rather than using it to surf and chat while watching TV is debatable, and could be a deal-breaker for many. Though better that than just trying to up-sell everyone to a Mac Mini…

Looking at it this way, it seems that even in an iPhone, iPod touch, and perhaps iTablet world, there’s still a place for an Apple TV in the lineup. If only for now.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Could the Apple TV be Replaced by the iPhone, iPod, or iTablet?

What’s funner than and iPhone in the car? And iPhone — literally — in. the. car. Or at least the new Lexus LF-Ch concept car thinks so. Gizmodo sibling site, Jalopnik has the details from the Frankfurt Auto Show:

The LF-Ch has four sport seats that feature trim lighting along the cushion’s edge for cabin illumination. Rear passengers can enjoy headrest-mounted iPhone® docking capability for audio and video entertainment. In addition, the LF-Ch has storage in the rear seat armrests for small items such as iPods®, PDAs and cell phones.”

The battle for most expensive iPhone accessory — oh, it’s on! So who wants 2 to 5 of those babies in their Rob Corddry-chauffeured hooptie?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Monday Fun Concept: Lexus iPhone Headrest Docks

Speaking of Apple TV and the future, MacRumors reports that Apple’s “hobby” lost its smaller SKU this morning as the 40GB Apple TV was cut from the Apple Store — and Apple product lineup — and the 160GB Apple TV was given a healthy price cut down from $329 to $229 [Apple Store link].

So our question becomes, is this a sign of Apple TV’s slow slide to oblivion, or just a clearing of the deck before a long, long, long overdue update?

Storage aside, the Apple TV hardware has been unchanged since it was announced back in 2006 and then launched at Macworld 2007 alongside the introduction of the iPhone. The software received minor 1.x bumps before getting the minor 2.x bumps — mostly in keeping with iTunes and QuickTime updates.

Of course, with iTunes 9 and Snow Leopard’s QuickTime X both being fairly significant updates this time around, no doubt another software bump is on its way… Could there finally be some new hardware coming with it?

We’ll keep our hopes up, but we’ve learned to live with anticipointment…

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple TV: 160GB Price Cut, 40GB Completely Cut

More than 2 years post-iPhone launch, no news on Flash ever coming to the iPhone, yet Apple is pressing ahead with technologies like H.264 video (YouTube App’s been using it since day one), HTML 5 and CSS animation (iPhone Safari supported them first), HTTP Live Streaming, and now WebGL for hardware accelerated 3D-graphics, and TuneKit, the framework behind the new iTunes LP rich media content.

Read on to find out what they are, how they work, and why they might make plugins like Flash increasingly unnecessary…

Says developer blog Wolfire:

WebGL is basically an initiative to bring 3D graphics into web browsers natively, without having to download any plugins. This is achieved by adding a few things to HTML5, namely, defining a JavaScript binding to OpenGL ES 2.0 and letting you draw things into a 3D context of the canvas element.

This would bring 3D-gaming (or any 3D application) right into the browser with hardware acceleration, with no plugin like Flash needed to hog your memory, heat up your processor, or crash the browser. (Browsers can do all of those things well enough without the extra help). In addition to WebKit (which is the foundation of Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome, Palm’s Web, BlackBerry’s just-purchased Torch Mobile, and some Nokia devices), Firefox and Opera are also supporting it. Internet Explorer? Shrug.

TuneKit is the foundation behind iTunes 9’s new iTunes LP and iTunes Extras formats, according to AppleInsider:

Similar to Apple’s use of the SproutCore JavaScript framework to build its MobileMe web apps, TuneKit provides media developers with a familiar JavaScript framework for creating interactive bonus materials. TuneKit, like SproutCore, proves that a proprietary middleware runtime plugin such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight is simply unnecessary to deliver this kind of interactive media content, thanks in part to rapid advances in JavaScript rendering engine optimization.

Like TiPb, they couldn’t help but notice the 720p nature of the current iTunes LP and iTunes Extras formats seem destined for the Apple TV, and we’re keeping the oft-rumored iTablet on that list as well.

Adobe Flash on the other hand, still hasn’t produced an optimized version for Mac OS X, never mind iPhone OS X, according to Apple is the number one cause of browser crashes, continues to experience security threats (though Javascript is no angel here either), and is under increasing privacy scrutiny due to Flash cookies. (If you’ve never checked, here’s the page on Adobe’s site that shows which websites are storing information about you in the Flash plugin).

Since, at the end of the day, users don’t care about Flash or WebKit/browser technology, they just want their videos and games, things like WebGL and TuneKit could very well replace large amounts of Flash (and competing formats like SilverLight) on the web, especially the mobile web.

And personally I’m fine with that. A series of cutting edge, specific, highly optimized technologies are sometimes better than aging, overextended architectures anyway (feel free to insert iTunes jokes here).

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

WebGL and TuneKit, Not Flash, the Future for iPhone?

Some readers are telling us they can already access MMS on AT&T. This has been happening for a while, of course. Justin was able to use MMS during the 3.1 beta, after all. We figured AT&T was testing the system. Now, AT&T officially has until the promised September 25 drop date to get all iPhone users up and running, however, it appears more and more people are gaining access to MMS and it’s not going away (at least yet).

So, in an effort to find out just how widespread this early MMS access is, we’re running the poll above, and if you are getting MMS already, asking you to let us know where, and for how long in the comments below.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Poll: Has AT&T Switched on Your MMS Early?

Yes, the Canadian App Store Categories tab really is all-Skype, all the time and has been for me since just after iPhone 3.1 launched last Wednesday (and no, the irony isn’t lost on us). Since App Store is fed by the web, I figured Apple would realize it and fix whatever feed needed fixing, but so far no such luck.

I tried TUAW’s workaround — switching to the US App Store an back, but iTunes intercepted me saying I couldn’t change stores until I’d spent whatever iTunes credit I had left in my account, and my rentals expired (I don’t currently have any rentals — the only one expired last weekend).

So I’m back to hoping Apple realizes it and fixes it, but if anyone does come up with a repeatable user-end fix, do let all of us Canadians know in the comments.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Skype Has Taken Over Canadian App Store Categories