QuickTake
Latest
Flickr Find: Apple's first camera now 20-years-old
This lovely photograph from James Rose captures the size and scale of Apple's only digital camera line. Built by Kodak, the QuickTake 100 was introduced twenty-years ago by Apple and was one of the first consumer digital cameras ever released. It cost $749 when it first went on sale in 1994. The QuickTake 100 was the first generation QuickTake model with support for eight photos at 640 x 480 resolution or 16 photos at 320 x 340. It was a minimal product with no manual focus, no zoom and a basic flash. The 100 series was succeeded by the QuickTake 150 in 1995 and QuickTake 200 in 1996 Apple's foray into the consumer camera market was short, ending in 1997 after Steve Jobs returned to lead the then struggling company. Similar to the Apple Newton, the QuickTake is now a collector's item sought after by Apple enthusiasts. Did you know that TUAW has a Flickr pool? And that we encourage readers to submit their own Apple related images? Please join and share with our group as we'd love to see your photos.
Apple's failed attempts at taking over the camera industry are now collector's items
The iPhone remains one of the most popular "cameras" on the planet, and Apple's smartphone has indeed conquered consumer photography, but it wasn't the company's first attempt to do so. In the mid '90s, Apple was going through its "see what sticks" phase. You remember: It was around this time that mind-boggling products like the Apple Bandai Pippin were born, and many of these short-lived product lines were sent to slaughter the moment Steve Jobs returned to the company. One such product category was Apple's QuickTake digital cameras, and today they're something of a rarity. Apple released a total of three QuickTake cameras, the 100, 150, and 200 models. The QuickTake 100, which debuted in 1994, could hold a total of eight photos at its maximum resolution, which was a paltry 640 x 480. It featured no way to preview or manage the photos already on the device unless you hooked it up to a Mac or Windows computer, and had a starting price of US$750. As one of the first consumer-focused digital cameras, the QuickTake was a harbinger of the digital photography future, but it didn't fare very well once longtime camera makers entered the digital battle. The QuickTake 150 and 200 didn't perform much better, and by the time Jobs culled the brand in 1997, any opportunity for Apple to impact the digital camera market had long since passed. But today, collectors look at the QuickTake camera not as an embarrassing misstep, but as a desirable artifact from Apple's past, and as such they are sought after. On the rare occasion that a working QuickTake pops up on eBay, it's often priced at or above the cost of today's digital cameras, despite the huge gap in capability. For example, the only QuickTake 200 currently available on the auction site is currently listed at US$119.95, which is enough to buy two decent point-and-shoots from a big box store. Of course, since the QuickTake 200 launched with a $600 price tag, maybe it's a deal after all? [Photo credit: Don DeBold]
Kodak sues Apple for allegedly interfering with patent sales, has little nostalgia for your QuickTake
Kodak may have recently obtained clearance to sell some patents and help dig itself out of bankruptcy, but it wants to be extra-certain Apple is nowhere near potential buyers if a deal goes down. The former camera maker is suing Apple in hopes of making the former collaborator drop challenges to the ownership of 10 imaging patents from the early 1990s, when the two were still buddy-buddy enough to design the QuickTake camera line together. Claims by Apple and patent transfer recipient FlashPoint Technology are purportedly just attempts to stall any patent sale as long as possible and spook buyers away, forcing Kodak to make some hard decisions about its own lawsuits. That's not to say Kodak is a doe-eyed innocent here: Apple has accused Kodak of trying to sweep any patent disputes under the rug with bankruptcy as the pretext. Although the lawsuit is just one part of a larger story, it could more definitively answer whether or not Kodak has enough bullets left in its patent gun. [Image credit: Mikhail Shcherbakov, Flickr]
Kodak can't dismiss Apple's claims on patents, gets clearance to sell those patents regardless
Apple might have been denied a lawsuit against Kodak while the former camera maker is in bankruptcy, but that hasn't kept it from winning in court. A Manhattan judge has tossed a Kodak attempt to dismiss Apple's claims that it, not Kodak, owns 10 of those patents through collaborative work back in the QuickTake days. The ruling explicitly clears Kodak to sell the patents to the highest bidder and gives it a quicker path to recovery. However, the compromise also sends a warning to any potential buyers that Apple might have a stake in patents that change hands -- a decision that will either push Kodak to set some money aside or risk sticking a potential buyer with the bill. While who owns what is still up for debate, Kodak likely isn't eager to have another Sword of Damocles over its head that risks scaring away much-needed patent buyers. [Image credit: Pittaya Sroilong, Flickr]
10 things to do while waiting for the MacBook
Sure, you're bummed that the unconfirmed rumors of MacBooks this week didn't materialuze, we all are. Todd Ogasawara has compiled a list of (admittedly dumb) things you can do while waiting for Apple to release the iBook replacement. I don't know about you, but I really want an Apple Quicktake 2006 digital camera.Oh, and the image accompanying this post comes from Engadget's third WWJD contest, so don't faint (and don't send in the link to the Apple store seminars about the 'new iBooks').
Quicktake 100 Digital Camera
We're all a little Boot Camped out, so let's take a look back into Apple's history to 1994 when Apple was focused on its core product: a digital camera.That's right, if you thought that the iPod was Apple's first foray into the consumer electronic market you are sadly mistaken. The Quicktake 100 was a digital camera that weighted a pound, took images at a resolution of 640x480, and had a 1MB of onboard memory so you could take 8 pictures. And it was Mac only (though later models were cross platform).Apple produced three models (the 100, 150, and the 200) before Steve Jobs returned to Apple and killed the product. Check out the Apple Quicktake page in Wikipedia for more info.Thanks to Retrothing for taking us down the technology memory lane.
30 years in Apple products: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Has it really been 30 years since two buddies named Steve sold off their prized possessions (Woz's HP calculator and Jobs' VW van) to raise money and launch a company? Has it really been 30 years since the two Steves, tired of selling blue boxes, built the Apple I and began selling it for $666.66? Yes, it has, and if you don't believe it, just compare Jobs' hairlines from '76 and today. And while the company has become known for many things, from its groundbreaking GUI to the iTunes Music Store, we know Apple has always been a hardware company at heart. So here's to you, Apple: the good, the bad and, yes, the ugly from the past 30 years. Happy Birthday.
