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The iPad 2's camera shoots at less than one megapixel. Photo: Jon Snyder / Wired.comIt seems impossible for Apple to put a decent camera into anything but the iPhone, and despite many hopes, both cameras in the iPad 2 are about as rudimentary as you could get without having to load a roll of film in there. In fact, the iPad 2’s camera has more in common with the low-res camera in the iPod Touch than it does to the rather excellent one in the iPhone 4.
The specs for the iPad’s rear-facing camera only lists on number: 720p. That should mean 1280 x 720, which gives a megapixel figure of 0.92, clearly useless for stills. However, flip over to the iPod Touch camera specs and we see the following: “HD (720p) up to 30 frames per second with audio; still photos (960 x 720) with back camera.” Yes, the Touch shoots stills at a lower resolution than video, just shy of 7 megapixels. This is most likely because the wide-screen movie format is squared-off to shoot stills.
It’s extremely likely that the iPad 2 and the iPod Touch share the exact same camera (although we won’t know for sure until iFixit tears one open to see). It seems that it will be fine for movies, and bad for photos. Then again, with the camera connection kit you can always just import images from a real camera. And for taking notes, snapping menus or grabbing pictures before grunging them up and sending them off to Instagram, it’ll do the trick.
Still, for a device that costs a minimum of $500, it would be nice to have a better sensor. Will we ever get one? It’s starting to look rather doubtful.
iPad 2 camera [Apple]
