The forgotten Apple camera line from 1994
- The Apple QuickTake was the first — and only — consumer digital camera line from Apple.
- It was discontinued only three years later.
- Apple wanted to join in on the new and competitive digital camera market.
The Apple QuickTake was a digital camera line that Apple started in 1994. Three products were developed between 1994 and 1997; the Apple QuickTake 100, 150 and 200, with the QuickTake 150 acting as a revision of the original camera rather than a major update.
While the QuickTake moniker is a great name itself (so much so that Apple resurrected it), the three devices were also bestowed with some awesome codenames. The QuickTake 100 was codenamed Venus, the 150 was codenamed Mars and the 200 was codenamed Neptune (planets in our solar system with closest to the sun coming first).
The QuickTake line of cameras lived a very short life, only being sold for three years before their discontinuation in 1997. The first two models (the QuickTake 100 and the 150) were manufactured in partnership with Kodak, and the 200 with Fujifilm.
All three cameras featured a resolution of 640 x 480 (0.3 megapixels), and could only capture and store eight images. Though those specifications are easily outdone by a modern mid-range smartphone, the camera was — like other Apple products — praised by the public for its ease of use and intuitive software. For those reasons, the QuickTake line was quickly thrown into the list of 100 greatest and most influential gadgets from 1994 to its retirement.
The camera’s prices varied between models. The original QuickTake 100 cost $750, with its revision (the 1995 QuickTake 150) costing less at $700. This camera was less of a granular update than a major upgrade from 100 series, similar to the iPhone “S” updates of today. While the camera remained largely the same, it did come with a brand new lens which allowed close-up shots, a feature the previous model did not have. The 150 also made the jump from storing eight photos to up to 32 with its 1MB of internal storage and improved compression. Finally, the last publicly available digital camera that Apple ever manufactured; the QuickTake 200. This camera was an obvious upgrade over the previous two cameras with many new and improved features such as new programmed focus distance modes and a new 0.35 megapixel sensor. The last QuickTake camera cost $600, $100 less than the first one.
As for the end of the QuickTake line, Apple’s camera division was cut alongside many other non-computer projects when Steve Jobs returned to the company in February of 1997. While the QuickTake camera is long gone, Apple’s cameras live on in the pockets of hundreds of millions around the world, as a part of the QuickTake’s legacy. The camera is still a respected Apple collectors item, with a few still spotted at the occasional Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). However, Apple geeks aren’t the only ones who haven’t forgotten the QuickTake; Apple has paid homage to its spiritual successor (the iPhone) by resurrecting the QuickTake name. In 2018, Apple announced the iPhone QuickTake camera feature, allowing users to shoot a video without leaving the still photo mode in the camera app. So, while the QuickTime camera is gone, it is not forgotten, and its name is used by millions today who may not even know of Apple’s original camera.
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