camera

St Clair Intellectual Property Consultants is suing Apple over claims that the company is infringing on patents it owns relating to digital still cameras. The company apparently has a history of patent litigation and Apple looks to be just the next target on the list, as Apple currently uses still digital cameras in the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G. The iPhone 3GS, iPod nano, and Mac computers all include digital cameras capable of capturing video.

After much anticipation, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone OS 3.1 software update at the "Rock and Roll" media event on Wednesday, September 9th. The new firmware, a free download for iPhone OS 3.0 users, adds the following fixes and changes:

Literally one day before Apple is expected to unveil a new line of iPods at its September 9th media event, reports have emerged suggesting that some of the iPods could be delayed due to technical difficulties. Per AppleInsider and Hardmac, a source close to the story has stated that Apple has experienced technical problems in the form of bad parts with camera modules being used in the new iPods.

The iPhone has long been the most camera phone used on Flickr and it's only appropriate that an official App Store application emerge to support this. Per Macworld, Flickr released an official native application [App Store, Free] this past Saturday.

The app sports features such as access to a slideshow of your contacts' recent photos, zooming in-and-out in Ken Burns-style, searching, browsing (by sets or tags), viewing recent activity, and uploading pictures snapped with your iPhone.

Several third party iPod cases have been spotted coming out of China hinting that the iPod touch may be getting the addition of a camera in the near future. Cult of Mac has managed to get their ninja-like fingers on twelve photographs of cases that include a camera hole on the back of the device similar to those found on iPhone cases. Unlike the iPhone, the hole is located in the center of the top back next to the antennae, rather than in a corner.

Even with the iPhone 3GS's shiny new 3 megapixel camera, we still see some complaints about the lack of a flash bulb on the iPhone. Ryan wanted one so badly that he decided to make his own out of a Mophie JuicePack. He simply cut it open, connected a bright white LED and a tiny switch, and now he can add a little light whenever he needs to take a picture just by holding down a button on the case. You can check out a step-by-step guide to make your own at his website.
[via CrunchGear]

Videos claiming to have been taken on an iPhone 3G S have started appearing on YouTube. The quality appears to have been affected by YouTube's compression, but seems to be accurate. You can check them out after the break.

Photos of what looks like the next iPhone running OS 3.0 have surfaced on a Chinese blog. The photos show how recording video and auto-focusing will work within the camera app. Auto-focus works by focusing on a point in the image, shown by a blue outline which can be moved by tapping anywhere on the screen. If the photos are legitimate, then the autofocusing capabilities will be pretty incredible and should have a very noticeable difference, as you can see.

In the midst of countless rumors regarding the next iPhone's camera capabilities, Gizmodo reports that iPhone 3.0 may bring improvements to the current iPhone's camera. The folks at iPhones.ru took some side-by-side photos to compare between 2.2.1 and 3.0. The results show quite an improvement in sharpness and exposure. The adorable results of the comparison are below.

Ars Technica has found two new job listings at Apple Inc. headquarters in Cupertino suggesting the company may be considering adding a camera to the iPod Touch. Until recently, the job description for "Camera Project Manager - iPhone" included a reference to the iPod.