“In 2002, Apple revolutionized the MP3 player market with its iPod music player. Apple wasn’t the first company to produce an MP3 player, it just did it better. The same can be said for the 2003 Cool Tools Best of the Tests Award winner, the iSight camera. Apple wasn’t the first company to make a Webcam, it just made one that’s better than others we’ve seen,” Christine Burns
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First post: Woooooo!
Don’t forget to update your iSight firmware.
“If Apple can take that technology and produce a Webcam that works on a Windows machine, then it could take over this market as well”
Take over this market.. World Domination. Yes!
I’ve never understood why Apple would make such a great camera and then basically cripple it by only making it work with iChat. Yes, I know they want to get more people to use iChat, but the iSight is an AMAZING camera, we had one on demo here at our store.
They should make the iSight as compatible as possible, they would sell like hotcakes.
The number of Windoze computers with firewire ports, though increasing, is still very limited. Perhaps it won’t work as well with USB 2.0?
“I’ve never understood why Apple would make such a great camera and then basically cripple it by only making it work with iChat.”
Probably for the same reason you can’t get Porsche seats and steering wheel in a Ford. iSight is just one more high quality piece in an entire computer system/experience. You bought your $400 HP at Wal-Mart. You got what you paid for. Live with it! I bought a Mac. I got much more than I paid for.
Ary,
you can put a Porshe steering wheel and seats in a Ford…
but it is not the same…
Has anyone here video conferenced from ichat AV to the new AIM Client? I think I heard they used Apple technology and if so the quality should be good. I am trying to set this up with my little sister so any hints on making it work would also be appreciated. I believe they can use any USB Camera for the AIM end of things.
Oh yeah, I did the upgrade to the iSight and the quality of the color REALLY improved. I think I saw less pixelation to but I am not sure.
You bought your $400 HP at Wal-Mart. You got what you paid for. Live with it! I bought a Mac. I got much more than I paid for.
Awesome! I’m adding this to my email signature!
From: AL
“Ary, you can put a Porshe steering wheel and seats in a Ford…but it is not the same… “
You can put Firewire and a few other great Apple products into a Wintel PC. The problem is that it *is* still just the same!
The iPod is supported for both FireWire and USB 2.0 because the upload transfer rate isn’t critical. As long as it gets done reasonably quickly (as opposed to USB 1.x’s pokey 12 Mbps), it’s OK. However, the iSight needs a lot more bandwidth in order to be effective, and USB can’t guarantee that the bandwidth will be there, even though it runs at a nominally higher speed (480 Mbps vs. 400 Mbps).
The problem is that USB devices share the bandwidth because they are based on a centralized computer; if you have a mouse and keyboard hooked up by USB, they each get 1/2 of the bandwidth. If you add the iSight (via USB), each device gets 1/3 of the bandwidth.
On the other hand, FireWire is peer-to-peer, and the bandwidth is only used when one of the devices has something to “say” (not counting the “heartbeat”, which takes up negligible bandwidth).
What advantage does USB2 have over Firewire 400, or Firewire over USB2? From the raw numbers, I’m being told that USB2 is faster. What’s the real story?
I’m asking because I don’t know.