Alan Perry's Blog

Wednesday February 07, 2007

And then there were zero?

I guess I discovered this back in November, but it didn't sink in until yesterday when a friend asked me if I had one to sell. Apple has silently discontinued the Apple iSight external firewire camera. They continue to brand the USB-based cameras that are integrated into the MacBook laptops and iMac as iSight, but if you want a camera for your Mac Mini or Mac Pro, you can't buy one from Apple anymore. USB alternatives that just plug-and-play with MacOS are available or will be soon, I guess. The story in the Apple Discussions area is that the iSight was discontinued because it contained too much hazardous material (hmmm, don't recall seeing a Proposition 65 notice on the box).

As far as I know, the iSight was the last consumer grade IIDC camera available on the market. The professional grade cameras like the Point Grey Research Dragonfly are still available, so IIDC isn't dead. This is just bad for people who wanted a high-quality, inexpensive IIDC camera. There are obviously unhappy people posting their displeasure in the Apple iSight Discussions area.

This is great for the folks who own iSights, but weren't using them because the cameras are now selling for more than when they were new on eBay. It is not great news for the folks who wanted one and didn't realize that Apple was discontinuing the model. I am sure if you continue to wait, prices will come back down to something sane in short order.

Ironically, I was finally getting around to implementing support for the iSight in the Solaris IIDC camera driver (dcam1394). Good thing for iSight fans that I didn't start implementing it sooner.

( Feb 07 2007, 04:06:46 AM PST ) Permalink