Apple Wins Waterproof Portable Camera Patent, GoPro Shares Slide

A newly granted Apple patent reveals the company’s interest in stepping into a territory in which GoPro is king. While pointing out the weaknesses of the GoPro system, it also unveils a possible feature Apple plans to add: waterproofing (via Patently Apple). Let the dreaming begin!

The patent background points to the GoPro HD Hero2 digital camera, mentioning that it only has a single image-capturing system that “captures images using an optical axis directed outward from the ‘front’ of the camera.”

A second weakness Apple points out and wants to solve is the battery life of the remotes: Currently, the remote’s battery life is limited, as it needs to always be connected to the camera to be notified whenever there is a change in the camera state.

The Apple patent 8,934,045 describes an invention related to a digital camera having a remote control. This could be the iPhone or the Apple Watch. One of the attached images depicts the front view of the remote control, making us wonder if the company will integrate it into the forthcoming wearable.

And the waterproofing part:

“In some embodiments, the microphone is capable of recording sounds in air and also in an underwater environment when the digital camera is used to record underwater images. In other embodiments, the digital camera includes both a conventional air microphone as well as an underwater microphone (hydrophone) capable of recording underwater sounds.”

The Apple patent was first filed in Q1 2012, and it also incorporates a Kodak patent the company acquired in 2013. GoPro shares plummeted after the news went mainstream.