During the Apple event on Thursday to preview iPhone OS 4.0, Steve Jobs announced an interesting thing. Even though iPhone OS 4.0 is coming to the iPhone and iPod touch in the Summer:
“We’re bringing iPhone OS 4 to the iPad this fall. All these features on the iPad.” – Steve Jobs
When I first heard this I thought that is was strange the iPad was getting the update later than the iPhone, and wondered, could that mean a hardware update is coming to the iPad as early as the fall?
There is one glaring omission on the iPad, a camera. Adding a camera to an iPad would be a minor addition, but it would definitely add a lot of functionality, including video chat.
Today 9to5Mac posting an interesting story detailing their exploration into the iPhone OS 4.0 software, and their evidence of an iChat app and video chat capabilities, presumably to be revealed with the new iPhone released this summer with iPhone OS 4.0. At the end of the article they added this:
“Finally, we’ve heard separately that the iPad and likely the iPod touch will receive video camera updates in the Fall when the 4.x OS goes Universal. The timing would make sense for the normal iPod touch yearly updates. The iPad, until then won’t have access to these camera strings, so it won’t have much use for a camera. Apple’s secrecy in building the iPad likely kept the iChat group out of the loop. Without them, there was no need for a camera on the first iPad.” Mark Gurman for 9to5Mac
Releasing a new iPad in the fall would definitely anger the early adopters whose iPads will be outdated after only 4-8 months, but Apple has not been afraid of that in the past as witnessed by the original iPhone’s early price drop.
It will be interesting to see if an updated iPad is released this year. It definitely has me wondering whether I should wait it out until the Fall announcement before I grab an iPad.
