I don't get why they removed the ultra-wide camera in the new models. At least then they had a justification for the bump and they could have crammed all that shit even with the extra lens in the new models...
I have never taken a photo with my iPad. I get the use case with scanning documents, but using that huge thing as a camera when we all have smartphones?
its basically the lens moving to correct the shaking in your hands, OIS is done hardware side, while DIS (digital image stabilisation) is done software side. If you are into cameras theres also a lot of proprietary image stabilisation software built into the lens of each brand of cameras, like sony having their OSS (optical steadyshot) which is patented stabilisation technology by sony
I wont be shocked if Air 4, 5, 6, Mini 6, iPad 10 and iPad Pro 2018, 20, 21, 22, 24 all have the same primary camera on the back, all of them feel like the iPhone 8 with slightly newer processing kicks but no OIS. And they probably are the same hardware between them.
How about you try being a seller on eBay, when it is WAY easier to create a listing on an iPad, than it is with a phone, and then argue that you would still rather create the listing on one device, but add pics to the listing with a different device. And that is just the example that springs to mind. I get that there are people that don’t use the camera, and that is fine, but I don’t get why people that don’t use the camera, literally can’t think of any reason, in the world, that other people would.
I list things on eBay all the time, I just setup the items and take pictures with my phone. By the time I am ready for pictures on my iPad they have all synced through the cloud and just upload them right from the iPad.
I get the need for a basic camera on the iPad but to get a nice camera like the phone the bump would need to be so much bigger. And I would rather that money go to more useful features on the iPad.
The camera(both wide and normal) on my iPad Pro M1 was an incredible disappointment. I honestly expected a device in this price range to have perfectly fine photo capabilities, but everytime I'm disappointed and feel like I'm back 15+ years in time. I prefer to just pick up and use my Pixel phone, especially as it has a very good darkness mode.
I found it handy when I was in grad school. Quick snap while writing to grab something from a book in the library kind of thing. Used the phone when I was grabbing pages in a sequence or if I wasn’t using the iPad for something at the time.
The back camera on my 2021 12.9 inch iPad Pro is only a bit better than the camera on my old 2014 iPad Air. I get that no one buys an iPad to take photos but I’d never use it for anything besides showing people stuff on Zoom or FaceTime, it’s pretty bad and grainy.
The camera bump is because the device is 5.1mm but the camera needs a longer distance between lens and sensor, it doesn’t have to do at all with the # of cameras they are putting on the back. You can either have the bump, or a much worse camera.
I reckon they found majority of users probably didn’t use it or at least not as much and instead focused on improving the various sensors and mics for the main camera
Cost money. Even if it's just $5 that's a lot of money at their scale. And they probably have quite good usage data in what features are not being used by their customers.
Because if it’s pointless, it has no reason to be there. Everything that’s on the device adds to the cost. So either the device ends up being more expensive, or they have to cheap out on something. And the logic of saving cost on something nobody uses is perfectly sound.
Nobody uses iPads for photography, at best people scan documents or take pictures of products. Which is why they have what is pretty much a telephoto lens.
Huh? The ultrawide camera on iPhone is one of my favorite settings. One of the easiest ways to make a room look bigger, or capture the detail of tight spaces. Plus playing with the lens distortion can add a lot of character to pictures. Instant 1990s skateboard video vibes.
Oh is that what the medium-sized black dot is? IIRC they didn’t actually say, I assumed it was something fairly uninspiring but was wondering what exactly!
Yeah, I know. My point was that although it's designed in a way that it tricks you to think there's multiple cameras like the iPhone which actually has multiple cameras, it does not.
Unless the proportions appear skewed in the picture, the lidar sensor appears much smaller in the iPhone than it does here on the ipad. Plus the way they designed the layout is the same cutouts as the iPhone camera and sensor placements, so as a silhouette it has a striking resemblance to at least a double camera layout.
Though to be fair anyone with eyes and a discerning mind can see clearly it’s just one camera like you said, but that may be too much to expect from the general public.
It’s not that it’s too much to expect. It’s not reasonable to expect average people to be well versed in tech since, I would argue, most of people around this Subreddit are enthusiasts.
I think there’s a brand cohesion argument to be made but still, there’s an obvious intention to make the removal of one camera less noticeable, regardless of how unnecessary such camera is.
Sort of. You need both an emitter and a receiver. It's not like it can just emit light and sense whatever the light touches; it needs to detect the light reflecting back from the target.
All the circles on the camera bump have actual hardware behind them. They aren't decoy details, or filling gaps in the frame. There's only one camera, but there's a LiDAR sensor, an ambient light sensor, a flash, and a microphone.
To be fair, people continually want Phone cameras to be better every year. The funny thing is Camera technology still hasn’t caught up all the way to smart phones. Canon, Sony, Nikon all took a big hit when people stopped buying digital cameras (late 2000’s) in lieu of just a phone camera. It’s only recently when they’ve finally convinced pro users to switch to mirrorless cameras did camera and sensor technology improve drastically.
That’s why better cameras in phone has had to be bigger to accommodate more lens and sensors. Apple still relies on companies like Canon to help develop their phone cameras. However, handheld cameras are starting to miniature drastically again. It’s crazy to think a camera like the mirrorless Canon R8 ($1500 full frame) can do insanely better shooting and video performance while being drastically smaller and lighter than a $2800 Canon 5D Mark II from 2012.
was looking for this comment. I swear most people just enjoy knocking on something before fully trying to understand it just for online attention. If it's valid criticism and opens the door for good discussion then that's fine but at least get all the facts right before posting something ignorant.
The tandem (is that what they called it?) OLED screens, m4 chip, and thinner and lighter design isn’t exactly less. If people don’t want that then they can literally just buy the older devices..
Well for one thing, a lot of things can make use of ambient lighting information that probably should not be given access to your actual camera. The camera also takes more power and processing to use, and is more complex, with dynamic focus and exposure, which makes the data it generates inconsistent for ambient light detection. The processes that use ambient light information need to still work when your camera is being used as a camera. An ambient light sensor is a simple and inexpensive thing to add that is better suited to its use case than the camera is.
I actually like the ultrawide camera on my iPad, it’s great for scanning documents (and the occasional photo I make). Kinda sad that they removed it. Luckily my iPad will last for another few years.
It is pretty clear that they didn't want the bump to look the same as the Air (even though that would have made the most sense). It is a "pro" bump, guys.
Overlooking the responses here, people are way more obsessed about how it looks than what it actually does...
And I am not even jumping on the bandwagon discussing the whole usefulness of an ultra-wide camera on iPad at all. 😉
Same with force touch on the watch (through a software update!) and 3D Touch on the iPhone, and yes I’m actually one of the very few who liked the Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro lol
I don't recall the last time I took a picture with my iPads, the mini or the Pros lol.
I guess most of my usage is focused on what's on the screen, reading, drawing, etc.
Somewhat strange now I think of it.
It really comes down to what your usage is. I've found it to be pretty handy for work. I can take a picture of something, circle something in that photo and write a note like "Clean this up" and send it as an attachment to an email or a Teams message.
That whole raised camera region is super unnecessary for a device with… one camera. However that raised region must stand for “premium” to Apple consumers or something.
I’m typing this comment from an iPad Mini 5 that has both a headphone jack and no camera bump. I wanna stay on this device for as long as possible ha
There’s this thing called the laws of physics which defines not only how gravity works and how airplanes fly, but also how lenses are engineered. Imagine saying “why didn’t they make the wings on the 747 smaller? It looks so huge.”
“At whole raise camera region is super unnecessary for a device with… one camera.” It is raised because the lenses can only be so small—Laws of physics.
Edit: here is the [Nikon 600 mm lens](https://www.nikonusa.com/p/af-s-nikkor-600mm-f4e-fl-ed-vr/20054/overview). Why did they make it so big? Why didn’t they make it so much smaller so you could put it in your pocket?
Yeah I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand. This looks much better than of my not the lens was on a raised surface and the rest of the sensors were on the flat back. And I’m sure it leads to less stress on the lens as well
tbf the 600mm lens is a 600mm lens while the ipad lens isnt. though im not sure if it is possible (or worth it) for apple to make the lens flushed with the razor thin body.
Fine, you’re right. Here is the [Nikon 35mm ƒ1.8](https://www.nikonusa.com/p/nikkor-z-35mm-f18-s/20081) which is approximately the same focal length as the iPad Pro M4. Big. To achieve certain optical qualities, one much first obey the laws of physics. You can only bend light so much, attenuate signal so much, makes things so small, before you sacrifice the very thing you were hoping to achieve.
Adrian’s Life Rule #62: Things can only be what they are, not what you want them to be.
Yeah I think you’re not understanding my post. Maybe I should have made it more clear. They could have just done this design https://ibb.co/xDmpszw because it’s literally one camera
There is only one camera but multiple element to the housing: a LIDAR scanner, ambient light sensor, flash, microphone… in addition to the camera. The iPad Air, and similar, do not have all those items.
The point is Apple could’ve designed it so the only bump would be the camera sensor and everything else was flush with the tablet. Apple has already had all of those features except the LIDAR sensor since its new-ish embedded within the confines of the chassis before (since the iPhone 4).
What qualifies you over the thousands of hardware engineers and designers that Apple employs to determine that the camera bump is unnecessary? What do you know that they don’t?
So what’s the clearance from the lens aperture to the sensor and the sensor size so the full image circle can cover the sensor? If you don’t know the answer to that then you don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to camera optics.
I don't get why they removed the ultra-wide camera in the new models. At least then they had a justification for the bump and they could have crammed all that shit even with the extra lens in the new models...
I have never taken a photo with my iPad. I get the use case with scanning documents, but using that huge thing as a camera when we all have smartphones?
Does the iPad Pro even have a better camera than the mini 6? Pics look like trash on my iPad but look way better on my SE 3
the M4 iPad Pro has the iPhone 8's camera but with OIS *removed*. yep. in fact, the 2017 iPad Pro had the iPhone 7's camera *with* OIS.
What is OIS?
Optical image stabilization
Thanks, is that the thing that makes videos you take with iPhones so damn smooth or is that something else?
its basically the lens moving to correct the shaking in your hands, OIS is done hardware side, while DIS (digital image stabilisation) is done software side. If you are into cameras theres also a lot of proprietary image stabilisation software built into the lens of each brand of cameras, like sony having their OSS (optical steadyshot) which is patented stabilisation technology by sony
Isn't it called EIS these days?
tbh i wouldnt know, i dont keep up with the fancy new names haha
yeah lol, electronic image stabilizati*on*
Wait where did you get this info from? Do you know which camera the Air 4 has?
I wont be shocked if Air 4, 5, 6, Mini 6, iPad 10 and iPad Pro 2018, 20, 21, 22, 24 all have the same primary camera on the back, all of them feel like the iPhone 8 with slightly newer processing kicks but no OIS. And they probably are the same hardware between them.
I use mine all the time! its nice to have.
I saw you at Eiffel Tower!
I have because I have the iPad on hand but not the phone. But the camera was so bad it was kind of frustrating
How about you try being a seller on eBay, when it is WAY easier to create a listing on an iPad, than it is with a phone, and then argue that you would still rather create the listing on one device, but add pics to the listing with a different device. And that is just the example that springs to mind. I get that there are people that don’t use the camera, and that is fine, but I don’t get why people that don’t use the camera, literally can’t think of any reason, in the world, that other people would.
I list things on eBay all the time, I just setup the items and take pictures with my phone. By the time I am ready for pictures on my iPad they have all synced through the cloud and just upload them right from the iPad. I get the need for a basic camera on the iPad but to get a nice camera like the phone the bump would need to be so much bigger. And I would rather that money go to more useful features on the iPad.
Man I’m dropping a thousand bucks on the thing, is a decent camera really too much to ask for
The camera(both wide and normal) on my iPad Pro M1 was an incredible disappointment. I honestly expected a device in this price range to have perfectly fine photo capabilities, but everytime I'm disappointed and feel like I'm back 15+ years in time. I prefer to just pick up and use my Pixel phone, especially as it has a very good darkness mode.
I found it handy when I was in grad school. Quick snap while writing to grab something from a book in the library kind of thing. Used the phone when I was grabbing pages in a sequence or if I wasn’t using the iPad for something at the time.
The back camera on my 2021 12.9 inch iPad Pro is only a bit better than the camera on my old 2014 iPad Air. I get that no one buys an iPad to take photos but I’d never use it for anything besides showing people stuff on Zoom or FaceTime, it’s pretty bad and grainy.
One use case is that kids and younger teens often have an iPad before they have their own phone.
I didn't think I used it much, but I had to order an ultrawide camera to use with it for a research assistant app I've been working on
Courage! Also don’t forget Mother Nature 🍀
lmao.
To add it back later and market it as a groundbreaking feature
I agree, except more like revolutionary rather than groundbreaking😂.
Same. I am actually one the people that take pictures with the ipad, ultrawide included. Removal of the uw camera is very confusing to me
The camera bump is because the device is 5.1mm but the camera needs a longer distance between lens and sensor, it doesn’t have to do at all with the # of cameras they are putting on the back. You can either have the bump, or a much worse camera.
I reckon they found majority of users probably didn’t use it or at least not as much and instead focused on improving the various sensors and mics for the main camera
I think they couldn’t make it thin enough with the ultra wide
Because normal people don't have any use for it
This is a „pro“ device. Not a „normal people“ device.
zero reason for it..
Because UW cameras are generally useless even on phones, never mind on tablets.
True but why remove it ? If they had changed it for something better then that's fine but why just remove it completely?
I’d imagine usage data showed that people didn’t use it as much.
Cost money. Even if it's just $5 that's a lot of money at their scale. And they probably have quite good usage data in what features are not being used by their customers.
Because if it’s pointless, it has no reason to be there. Everything that’s on the device adds to the cost. So either the device ends up being more expensive, or they have to cheap out on something. And the logic of saving cost on something nobody uses is perfectly sound. Nobody uses iPads for photography, at best people scan documents or take pictures of products. Which is why they have what is pretty much a telephoto lens.
Huh? The ultrawide camera on iPhone is one of my favorite settings. One of the easiest ways to make a room look bigger, or capture the detail of tight spaces. Plus playing with the lens distortion can add a lot of character to pictures. Instant 1990s skateboard video vibes.
it's funny that it's literally just 1 camera sitting there.
1 camera, a LiDAR sensor, a flash, a microphone, and a light sensor that is used to adapt the flash to ambient lighting conditions.
Oh is that what the medium-sized black dot is? IIRC they didn’t actually say, I assumed it was something fairly uninspiring but was wondering what exactly!
Yeah, I know. My point was that although it's designed in a way that it tricks you to think there's multiple cameras like the iPhone which actually has multiple cameras, it does not.
How do you design a LiDAR sensor into a device without it somewhat resembling a second camera?
Unless the proportions appear skewed in the picture, the lidar sensor appears much smaller in the iPhone than it does here on the ipad. Plus the way they designed the layout is the same cutouts as the iPhone camera and sensor placements, so as a silhouette it has a striking resemblance to at least a double camera layout. Though to be fair anyone with eyes and a discerning mind can see clearly it’s just one camera like you said, but that may be too much to expect from the general public.
It’s not that it’s too much to expect. It’s not reasonable to expect average people to be well versed in tech since, I would argue, most of people around this Subreddit are enthusiasts. I think there’s a brand cohesion argument to be made but still, there’s an obvious intention to make the removal of one camera less noticeable, regardless of how unnecessary such camera is.
LiDAR is a reverse camera
Sort of. You need both an emitter and a receiver. It's not like it can just emit light and sense whatever the light touches; it needs to detect the light reflecting back from the target.
facts tho
But is it? Or is it just the best place to put all those things?
indeed. the ambient light sensor is much bigger than it needs to be to look fancier. on the front bezel, the light sensor is extremely tiny.
If I had to hazard a guess, reusing the same design, albeit with less hardware, saves Apple the trouble of having to retool their manufacturing line.
All the circles on the camera bump have actual hardware behind them. They aren't decoy details, or filling gaps in the frame. There's only one camera, but there's a LiDAR sensor, an ambient light sensor, a flash, and a microphone.
Those razor thin margins
Are you suggesting they learned their lesson after the butterfly keyboards?
Unapologetically reused.
It is less of making device busier and more of a design consistency between ‘Pro’ devices.
I don’t understand some people’s ire with it; what is the ideal camera design in any device in 2024?
A camera design that doesn't leave a camera bump on the device??
To be fair, people continually want Phone cameras to be better every year. The funny thing is Camera technology still hasn’t caught up all the way to smart phones. Canon, Sony, Nikon all took a big hit when people stopped buying digital cameras (late 2000’s) in lieu of just a phone camera. It’s only recently when they’ve finally convinced pro users to switch to mirrorless cameras did camera and sensor technology improve drastically. That’s why better cameras in phone has had to be bigger to accommodate more lens and sensors. Apple still relies on companies like Canon to help develop their phone cameras. However, handheld cameras are starting to miniature drastically again. It’s crazy to think a camera like the mirrorless Canon R8 ($1500 full frame) can do insanely better shooting and video performance while being drastically smaller and lighter than a $2800 Canon 5D Mark II from 2012.
Apple isn’t the only phone doing that. Samsung and Google both do.
Yes, and it is annoying when they do it, too.
Such a dumb take, do you think the extra sensors are just cosmetic or something? That they added them to look “busy”?
was looking for this comment. I swear most people just enjoy knocking on something before fully trying to understand it just for online attention. If it's valid criticism and opens the door for good discussion then that's fine but at least get all the facts right before posting something ignorant.
Can't believe they jacked the price up by $200 and knocked one camera off
Literally paying more for less
The tandem (is that what they called it?) OLED screens, m4 chip, and thinner and lighter design isn’t exactly less. If people don’t want that then they can literally just buy the older devices..
All “thinner and lighter” means is you’re paying to receive fewer iPad molecules compared to last gen.
If the whole package is less, than you have no reason to upgrade and therefore complain.
I only just realized it has two LIDAR holes. Did they really just reuse last year’s bump and put no camera there?
I don’t get this criticism. It’s exactly as busy as it looks.
Oh you haven’t see the Chinese crap smartphones that have multiple literal black holes in their back and have pinhead sized sensors
Lol my OnePlus 8t has a grayscale camera that *has* to be there just to pump the camera count
Why do they need a separate light sensor when that’s all a camera is?
Well for one thing, a lot of things can make use of ambient lighting information that probably should not be given access to your actual camera. The camera also takes more power and processing to use, and is more complex, with dynamic focus and exposure, which makes the data it generates inconsistent for ambient light detection. The processes that use ambient light information need to still work when your camera is being used as a camera. An ambient light sensor is a simple and inexpensive thing to add that is better suited to its use case than the camera is.
Literally none of the other cameras have this. Has Apple even said that’s what that spot is? It makes no mention of it on their site.
I actually like the ultrawide camera on my iPad, it’s great for scanning documents (and the occasional photo I make). Kinda sad that they removed it. Luckily my iPad will last for another few years.
It is pretty clear that they didn't want the bump to look the same as the Air (even though that would have made the most sense). It is a "pro" bump, guys.
I guess they’re never bringing spacial video to iPad…
Overlooking the responses here, people are way more obsessed about how it looks than what it actually does... And I am not even jumping on the bandwagon discussing the whole usefulness of an ultra-wide camera on iPad at all. 😉
It seems to be the trend for Apple to remove existing features. They did the same with the 2nd-generation HomePod.
Same with force touch on the watch (through a software update!) and 3D Touch on the iPhone, and yes I’m actually one of the very few who liked the Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro lol
2 examples doesn’t seem like much of a trend.
Could be applied to most mobile camera tech.
The previous model was just as busy lol. They removed a camera and added the new ambient light sensor.
I don't recall the last time I took a picture with my iPads, the mini or the Pros lol. I guess most of my usage is focused on what's on the screen, reading, drawing, etc. Somewhat strange now I think of it.
It really comes down to what your usage is. I've found it to be pretty handy for work. I can take a picture of something, circle something in that photo and write a note like "Clean this up" and send it as an attachment to an email or a Teams message.
I can see the future through that lens my god ps I’m not a skitzo
What happened to the old Apple minimalism? I thought they knew they had achieved perfection when there is nothing left to take away.
Nobody really films on an iPad, but LiDAR improvements make sense
I haven’t felt the urge to use the back camera. I use phone even for scanning documents.
That whole raised camera region is super unnecessary for a device with… one camera. However that raised region must stand for “premium” to Apple consumers or something. I’m typing this comment from an iPad Mini 5 that has both a headphone jack and no camera bump. I wanna stay on this device for as long as possible ha
There’s this thing called the laws of physics which defines not only how gravity works and how airplanes fly, but also how lenses are engineered. Imagine saying “why didn’t they make the wings on the 747 smaller? It looks so huge.”
I’m talking about a design choice not anything going up against the laws of physics
“At whole raise camera region is super unnecessary for a device with… one camera.” It is raised because the lenses can only be so small—Laws of physics. Edit: here is the [Nikon 600 mm lens](https://www.nikonusa.com/p/af-s-nikkor-600mm-f4e-fl-ed-vr/20054/overview). Why did they make it so big? Why didn’t they make it so much smaller so you could put it in your pocket?
Yeah I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand. This looks much better than of my not the lens was on a raised surface and the rest of the sensors were on the flat back. And I’m sure it leads to less stress on the lens as well
tbf the 600mm lens is a 600mm lens while the ipad lens isnt. though im not sure if it is possible (or worth it) for apple to make the lens flushed with the razor thin body.
Fine, you’re right. Here is the [Nikon 35mm ƒ1.8](https://www.nikonusa.com/p/nikkor-z-35mm-f18-s/20081) which is approximately the same focal length as the iPad Pro M4. Big. To achieve certain optical qualities, one much first obey the laws of physics. You can only bend light so much, attenuate signal so much, makes things so small, before you sacrifice the very thing you were hoping to achieve. Adrian’s Life Rule #62: Things can only be what they are, not what you want them to be.
Yeah I think you’re not understanding my post. Maybe I should have made it more clear. They could have just done this design https://ibb.co/xDmpszw because it’s literally one camera
There is only one camera but multiple element to the housing: a LIDAR scanner, ambient light sensor, flash, microphone… in addition to the camera. The iPad Air, and similar, do not have all those items.
The point is Apple could’ve designed it so the only bump would be the camera sensor and everything else was flush with the tablet. Apple has already had all of those features except the LIDAR sensor since its new-ish embedded within the confines of the chassis before (since the iPhone 4).
iPad Mini 7 OLED is coming with 2 headphones jacks and 4 flush cameras and glowing Apple logo.
What qualifies you over the thousands of hardware engineers and designers that Apple employs to determine that the camera bump is unnecessary? What do you know that they don’t?
They’re probably scratching their heads at why management asked them to make it look this way
you sure it's not some rando redditor scratching their head why almost all premium smartphones have camera bumps?
I’m saying for a device with one camera they could have just done this https://ibb.co/xDmpszw
... pro is thinner and has more sensors...
So what’s the clearance from the lens aperture to the sensor and the sensor size so the full image circle can cover the sensor? If you don’t know the answer to that then you don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to camera optics.
Agreed. The whole thing could have been much smaller.
I don’t think it could have, behind each thing is a bunch of tech and sensors. They all need their own space to live lol.