Mobile Computing News

Photo: Apple

The omission of a webcam on the iPad has been noted as one of the device’s biggest failings, with users and technology sites lamenting this seemingly shortsighted move. But if lines of code found in the just-released iPhone 3.2 SDK are to be believed, this will soon change for both the iPad and the iPhone 4G.

Code never lies

Photo: Apple

Astute developers looking through the company’s SDK code have unravelled many of Apple’s product development strategies. In doing so now with the recently released iPhone 3.2 SDK, evidence has emerged that Apple intends on propping a front-facing video cam into both the iPhone 4G and the iPad, with developers seeing early signs on how they can implement their software to take advantage of that hardware. This revelation comes from code in the TelephonyUI.framework, revealing strings with ‘VideoChat’ clearly referenced. After further digging, developers found specific reference to iChat, which suggests that this will be Apple’s native application to take advantage of this functionality.

The distortion effect

Photo: Apple

Additionally, why this is unsurprising is because Apple has, in the past, omitted functionality that is standard across all devices in its category, to only release it much later to an inordinate amount of fanfare. MMS, copy-paste, and tethering are examples of mobile phone functions that have been around in Nokias and other cellphones for nearly a decade and Apple released these during the life of the iPhone 3G, with tethering arriving late last year on the iPhone 3GS. This strategy seems to have served the company well, and it appears it will roll over into the iPad as well.

iPad dissipating hype?

In terms of expectation, Apple’s iPad had an impossible amount of hype to live up to and, as stood to reason, it could not. Since the device’s reveal, what many pundits have said is  near-on identical to what they said about the iPhone: it’s either over-hyped, or the second generation device will be the must-have iPad. Whether the first claim is true remains to be seen, but the second, with the iPhone 3.2 SDK hinting at a feature people thought would be there out of the box, puts the iPad more in line with people’s expectations. The iPad is set to be released during March with the iPhone 4G announcement coming in June.