Repair shop confirms Apple’s plans to include a front camera in its tablet

Feb 2, 2010 08:50 GMT  ·  By
At the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Steve Jobs holds up his iPad demo unit for the attending crowd to see Apple's "latest creation"
2 photos
   At the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Steve Jobs holds up his iPad demo unit for the attending crowd to see Apple's "latest creation"

Apple undoubtedly planned on having a camera built inside the iPad, people receiving shipments of iPad parts have confirmed. Moreover, eagle-eyed observers were able to spot something that looked like an iSight camera on the demo unit used by Apple CEO Steve Jobs during last week’s keynote address.

Cult Of Mac cites “sharp-eyed observers” as saying that an iSight camera appears to be built inside the iPad Steve Jobs used in last week’s keynote. They provide the picture above (click to enlarge) as evidence that this is the case. Admittedly, at one point during Steve Jobs’ presentation, light appears to sink inside a hole at the top of the demo unit, bouncing back out, in what would be typical to a camera lens. Needless to point out, such a poor-quality image cannot be deemed accurate, not to mention the possibility of this being a fake.

However, a repair company going by the name of Mission: Repair corroborates these claims by revealing that it actually has hard evidence of plans for a camera inside the Apple tablet. On the Mission Repair Blog, a post says, “We received our first shipment of iPad parts today. Here’s one of the metal internal frames,” and shows a picture of the part in question.

“Upon opening them up and getting our hands on some of these rare items, we immediately noticed what appears to be a ‘spot’ for a camera within the iPad frame,” the post continues to reveal. “Hmmmm,” the post goes. “We pulled a camera from a Unibody MacBook. Just a standard camera unit that we see everyday.”

You can tell the poster isn’t much of a suspense fan, as he quickly reveals, “Guess what, it fits right in there. The camera slips in the frame, the lens fits in the hole, the LED that indicates that the camera is on, fits, and the ambient light sensor hole is also correct. It appears that the plans to have camera in the iPad is a reality. I’m looking forward to the iPad. . .Rev 2.” The relevant imagery is available to the left.

So, what do you guys think: is the iPad iSight going to be something like the much-anticipated cut/copy/paste for the iPhone? Clearly this wasn’t a feature to skip on the iPad. Is it just possible that Apple is pursuing its strategy to build up hype for V 2.0 features that would have made just as much sense for V 1.0 units?

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At the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), Steve Jobs holds up his iPad demo unit for the attending crowd to see Apple's "latest creation"
iPad and MacBook frames set aside one another for comparison - iSight appears to have been on the blueprints for the Apple tablet
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