14 DAY TRIAL // An interview with Digg founder Kevin Rose has revealed that Apple's iPhone is in for an overhaul within a few months, and he's not just talking about 3G. According to the man, Apple will implement video chat capabilities into the handset as well.
As everyone owning an iPhone knows, Apple's smartphone sports only one camera, on the back side of the device. What Rose is talking about is a new iPhone, equipped with a second camera just underneath the touchscreen glass on the front upper side of the device (in the right upper corner, as he points out in this 90 second segment of his weekly Podcast show "Diggnation").
Currently, the iPhone features a built in 2.0 megapixel camera, without a flash, located on the back. It is used for still digital photos, as the iPhone does not support video recording. The device, however, includes software that allows the user to upload, view and e-mail photos, while zooming in and out of photos is done by "unpinching" and "pinching" them respectively, using Apple's much touted multitouch capabilities.
The Digg founder is pretty sure that Apple's "iPhone Pro" is due to be out in mere months. Well, yeah sure, let's chew on this one too, I don't recall any better rumors lately. Not that we don't trust Mr. Rose on this, it's just that he doesn't always predict this kind of stuff 100% accurate. One notable such inaccurate prediction is Apple's introducing an iPhone sporting not one, but two battery chambers, something not likely to materialize even today. That, of course, turned out to be false, but Rose has had some pretty good forecasts too, most notably a last minute report of an iPod nano, prior to the player's official release in 2005, according to AppleInsider.
We can't say for sure whether video chatting is Apple's top priority with the iPhone right now, given that they're pretty busy issuing restrictions with the apps due out for release via the AppStore, and taking devs aboard as they prove they're worthy of the elusive device. Nevertheless, as every day passes, Apple's iPhone proves to be better at everything that other handsets do, all this while it, on its own, incorporates features that more devices combined do.
So is it too soon to say that smartphone fans are to expect a 3G iPhone boasting video chat capabilities? We'll leave that for you to decide within the comments column.