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Comment by llampx | Hacker News Reader

I also noticed fairly early on, that phone cameras were improving by leaps and bounds, while laptop webcams and USB webcams seemed to be at a standstill, image-quality wise.

I don't know why that is, but even Apple would seemingly rather shave 50 cents off the BOM by speccing a 720p Facetime camera in their $3000 Macbook Pros, and trying to make up the difference with software, like with the new M1 Macs that have better image quality using the same 720p webcam.

For my desktop I've taken to using an action camera, since software that supports using Android phones as webcams seemed to not be so good when I looked. It plugs in via USB, is cheap, has auto-focus and supports a wider angle of view than most webcams. Good for group calls. One can always zoom in with software.

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> even Apple would seemingly rather shave 50 cents off the BOM by speccing a 720p Facetime camera in their $3000 Macbook Pros

The reason I've heard is that the macbook display assembly simply doesn't have the depth to house a decent camera. The camera bump in phones exists for a reason - and phones are already way fatter than macbook displays.

I have no idea if thats true though.

I've got a late 2019 iMac, and it's got the same piece-of-shit camera that the MBPs do. I think (without looking it up) recent iMacs bumped the specs. It is one of my few disappointments with this machine. OTOH, my workplace doesn't use cameras on online meetings. My musical jam group does, though. And I paid about $3K for this machine, so it shouldn't even be a discussion.

I also thought about this but then look at the iPad and iPhone Facetime cameras. They offer much better image quality than Macbook webcams. There are a few ways to offer "rear camera" quality on Macbooks, like having a little bump sticking out from the back. I don't think that's what people are asking for though. They just want a webcam that's as good as the webcam in their phone.

Also this doesn't answer the question of why USB webcams are so terrible. They have tons of room.

Those devices are significantly thicker that a MacBook display.

I could imagine a bump towards the front that would sink into the body when closed, but doing it in a way that looks and feels good also seems rather hard - but also harder to avoid should they want to implement things such as face id.

I guess we'll never know until we have the front camera assemblies from both sitting side by side.

Fortunately this is the Internet. You can see those parts plenty of places - like ifixit for example. Yes, the front facing cameras on iPhones are thicker than what would fit in a current MacBook display.

Honestly though, I think the real reason webcams on laptops suck is that until recently 95% of people didn't use them 99% of the time.

The iPhone Front Facing Camera Module is already thicker than the whole MacBook Pro Screen + Glass + Casing.

That improvement in image quality requires Apple Cortex CPUs due to Apple’s implementation strategies for cameras. I expect Apple will update the cameras in future laptop models as Apple Silicon arrives fully across their product lines, likely using the same package from their phones.

Apple: Thinnest laptop evar!

Also Apple: We can't give you a better camera because we gave you the thinnest laptop evar!

"We think you're gonna love it!"

Also Apple: We can’t give you better battery life because we gave you the thinnest laptop evar!

Huh? Their "thinnest laptop ever" (the air) isn't the only laptop they sell. The macbook pro is almost all battery and its quoted at 17 hrs web browsing / 20hrs of video playback. thats massive.

I think apple deserves criticism for a lot of things they do, but their battery life is fantastic. (Well, unless you've got half a dozen electron apps running. But thats not apple's problem to solve.)

Much thicker laptops have equally bad camera.

Thats the same story someone I know that works at Apple told me. They would like to put a better camera in there as much as we would like one, but its not economical at the moment.

Is the image quality any better on iMac? At the very least on expensive iMac Pro? If not, the issue is not physical limitations of Macbook, it's most likely cost.

Yes. The new iMac 27" and iMacPro both use a 1080p webcam and also use the T2 chip for image processing. I recently upgraded from a 2015 iMac 27" to the 2020 iMac 27" and the webcam is better although still not great.

On the flip side, you can get some decent cameras in the "nose up position" these days.

Higher resolution at exactly the wrong angle? Wonderful!

The display frame has plenty of space for a phone-type camera sensor of any resolution, it's just a flat CMOS. Even a really big phone sensor is only 8x6x3mm

A good lens is more difficult to fit in the Z-dimension but that doesn't constrain the resolution of the sensor. A small bump in the bezel and a corresponding recess in the base would allow a better design of lens.

3mm? Based on my measurement just now, the lid of my 16" MBP is just about 4mm thick - so no, after the case and front glass there's enough room for even the sensor, let alone a lens.

Yes exactly, there's plenty of space for a decent sensor and lens. On top of that we're talking about a wide-angle lens, which are generally flatter. Two things add thickness and complexity to camera lenses - telephoto and autofocus. Phones only recently started getting thick bumps for the rear camera when telephoto lenses became more popular. My phone has a sizeable bump for the telephoto camera but the ultra-wide angle one is outside of that bump.

As smartphones essentially replaced point and shoot cameras, image quality became a major selling point. In fact, for many people, that's the only reason for getting a modern, high-end phone.

Laptop cameras are typically used only for the occasional video chat, with so much compression on the line that the image looks like crap anyways. And before 2020, I'm quite sure most laptops didn't see their webcam used even once.

Maybe for the following years, now that people realized that their laptop webcam is not just a place to put a sticker on, manufacturers will put on something better.

In my view, phone cameras are used for photography, in addition to conferencing. So they need to be better quality for that use. Nobody takes pictures of their outdoor adventure, or an image of a document, with a laptop camera.

Well, some people do. My kids were in the youth orchestra, and they had to issue a rule that parents are not allowed to hold an iPad up in the air for the entire duration of the concert.

That's what I thought recently about the MacBook Camera. I have switched to Mac Mini M1 and bought Logitech StreamCam for ~£150. It sucks in every possible way: focus does not work properly in any conditions except natural daylight, CPU expensive, additional meaningless software for basic features, etc. Now, I miss the MacBook camera. Yes, it is 720p, but do I need more for my meetings? Nope. It just works. The quality is acceptable, no problems with any applications/web-tools, plays well with system resources, etc. If we are talking about "Zoom me" cameras, I would prefer the MacBook's one. If we are talking about YouTube streamers, etc., then it is a bit different area, and yes, MacBook's camera will not help with this.

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