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Last week I speculated about what Apple could have in store for the fall, when it’s competitors in the MP3 player market will all be raising their games. The apparent answer is all over the blogosphere as TechCrunch tips the fact that Apple is buying gajillions of the camera they used in the iPhone 3GS…so many in fact they can only be planning on embedding them in the forehead of every one of Apple’s media contacts…or in every new iPod big enough to hold the lens.

This is a move that makes perfect sense, as it will be cheap, easy, already field tested by the iPhone and VERY well received. iPhone users and tech bloggers are still making gushy moist noises about the iPhone’s video capabilities, some going so far as implying that there is no need for camera vendors to bother anymore. Many are now considering such video cameras as the Flip to be Dead Gadgets Walking due to the iPhone. Adding that capability to the iPods will spread some easy good will among iPod fans who are a little tired of watching all the best goodies going to the iPhone and make it almost a given that iPod users will be upgrading, which is the real trick for Apple these days. So many people have iPods now, Apple is competing more against itself then they are against Microsoft, SanDisk or iRiver in this market. How do you get longtime, satisfied iPod owners to buy a new one when they still love their old one? Adding a camera will likely do it in droves.

Of course, Apple has also been in the strange position of watching the upcoming Zune HD getting positive buzz, and not just from the normal “Anything but iPod” types. They needed to come up with something splashy that would be a popular upgrade without raising the price too high….and a camera should fit that bill nicely.

The Zune HD will still be an important step forward for Microsoft and will likely sell quite well based on it’s Tegra based power and early enthusiasm, but a camera laden iPod Touch will blunt that breakthrough quite a bit. I will still buy a Zune HD, but if Apple DOES add a camera to the iPod Touch, I will buy one of those too, upgrading from my first gen iPod Touch. The speaker on the second gen didn’t inspire me to do so, but the 3GS camera would…and I am quite sure I won’t be alone.

Zealot (469 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).