Your dream of holding an iPad 2 steady in front of your face so you can snap a photo of your friends and family is about to be realized -- new visual evidence confirms that the device will have at least one camera.
OK, so perhaps you won't be able to use your iPad 2 as a point-and-shoot replacement -- the evidence so far points to at least one camera, and that's a front-facing one.
According to Mac Rumors , Apple's developer release of iOS 4.3 Beta 2 features an image (homeScreenOverlayFaceTime~ipad.png) that shows three new standard app icons. These icons are FaceTime, Camera, and PhotoBooth (and for those of you who think this might just be an iPhone thing, check out the image name -- ipad.png).
The image is part of a wallpaper selection preview, and the current iPad uses a different image -- one without these new camera-oriented apps.
Unfortunately, these apps don't tell us much about the camera(s?) -- just that there will be a front-facing one. FaceTime is a video chat application that allows users to video conference with other iOS devices and Macs, while PhotoBooth will allow users to take fun photos with filters.
The camera app hints that there may be a back-facing camera (after all, you can take normal photos with PhotoBooth on the Mac, so the camera app seems otherwise redundant), but it's possible that the camera app will only be used with the front-facing camera. The iPad 2 is expected to be announced sometime in the spring.
Honestly, I think there will be a back-facing camera ... and it will be kind of ridiculous. Who really wants to hold up a 9-inch tablet to snap a photo that's likely not much better than phone-quality? Yeah, not me.
What do you guys think: Will the iPad 2 have a camera? Two cameras? Eight cameras and a built-in projector? Leave it in the comments!
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