Earlier today I did a quick post on whatsoniphone about an article in Business Week regarding recent speculation that the next generation iPhone will bring on-the-go video recording in a big way. One sentence in the piece jumped out at me. It said, “Evidently, shooting video is as easy as it is with a Flip, the ingenious device made by Pure Digital.”

Having now used the new Flip UltraHD since it arrived on Friday this piqued my interest. What does it mean for Flip and other handheld video devices if Apple does, indeed, make the move into mobile video. I have a few thoughts…

On The One Hand…

Pure Digital Doesn’t Have To Worry… The iPhone Won’t Touch The Quality Of The UltraHD

I have been making good use of the newly released Flip UltraHD since it arrived Friday morning.  It takes great video, is super convenient to carry and has inboard editing and sharing software that launch as you plug it into your computer; it is an amazing piece of kit.

Even if the iPhone gets video recording capabilities, it is a pretty good bet that it won’t get the best quality video capabilities that are currently available in a portable device. People will be thrilled, but will also gripe about the image quality or feature set not being “the best”. We’ve seen it before!

When the iPhone and its 2MP camera was released, there were already plenty of phones that had moved past it in terms of picture quality, MegaPixel and functionality. Apple didn’t put in the best camera they could have.. and they didn’t need to. People still bought it in droves, even thought there were plenty of phones whose cameras were much better. Almost two years later, people are still buying an iPhone with its 2MP camera, even though there are some phones that now rival the best dedicated point and shoot.

The iPhone camera proved that people will flock to the whole of the iPhone package, even if the parts are less than great. And in doing so Apple created a situation in which the camera now becomes another reason for people to upgrade. Would I upgrade ONLY for a better camera? NOPE. But it certainly adds to the upgrade argument.

The point is this- Apple COULD put a stellar camera in the iPhone that takes great images and video…but they won’t. They won’t up the cost to do it. They won’t cut their profits to do it. And they won’t undermine future upgrading to do it. So they most likely WILL add video functionality, but it won’t be the BEST video functionality.

In short, even if the iPhone includes video recording it is likely that Flip will remain a far better portable video camera… at least for now.

On The Other Hand…

Pure Digital Better Worry… Their Easy Edit And Share Software Will Hit the Road

One of the nice surprises while using the UltraHD for the past few days has been using the onboard software to quickly edit and share videos. For some reason I never used this functionality with the Flip Mino, but now that I have, I’m really impressed. The fact that it is built into the camera itself, and it automatically loads when connected to a computer through its USB jack is fantastic! Add to that the fact that the software, rudimentary as it is, is dead simple to use and you have a winning package.

Winning… unless the rumors are true and the new iPhone OS will actually include some sort of iMovie mobile functionality. “Simple” is GREAT. “Simple-On-The-Fly-Without-The-Need-For-A-Computer” is AWESOME!

The iPhone has already taken many tasks formerly tied to a desktop or notebook and made them entirely mobile. RSS feeds, basic and not so basic image editing, web browsing… all of these and much more became a mobile reality with the advent of the iPhone and iPod Touch. (A quick look at the Touch browsing numbers for last month is a good indication, and THAT is on a device without 3G!) If the iPhone gets any sort of editing and uploading functionality, it will SERIOUSLY injure Flip. (And YouTube better add some serious server power because uploads are going to explode.)

Just as the iPhone changed mobile browsing forever, so too can it change the relationship we have to mobile video creation. It will leave a host of victims along the side of the road… and film the entire thing.

So what WILL we see in the way of video capture and sharing in the new iPhone and iPhone OS? Steve knows… and we will too, soon enough. (okay… not QUITE soon enough.)

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