Mac webcam help: WTF?

Posted on December 3rd, 2006 by Jackie Danicki

For reasons too convoluted to go into, I really need a webcam for my Mac, ASAP. Because of EU regulation compliance issues, the Apple iSight is completely unavailable in the UK (and the rest of Europe, for that matter). All of the Mac webcams listed on Amazon are out of stock or discontinued. A Google search for mac webcam comes up with no actual mac webcams for sale. WTF? How can it be this hard to get what should be a standard peripheral?

(If I needed someone to get onto iChat with me, and they came to me and said, “Sorry, no can do - you can’t get the iSight or any other Mac webcam in my country,” I’d think they were the biggest flake on earth. This will amuse me at the point where I no longer have to consider saying it myself.)

Filed under: Life, Photography, Technology

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10 Responses to “Mac webcam help: WTF?”

  1. Jackie Danicki, on December 3rd, 2006 at 4:02 am Said:

    NB No, I don’t want to pay over the odds for one on eBay (and even there, they are in short supply).

  2. Peter, on December 3rd, 2006 at 8:18 am Said:

    It’s no help at all to explain the ban rather than help you evade it, but I have done a good amount of research into this area and basically Brussels is using the precautionary principle as a protectionist measure to keep out all the non-EU goods it possibly can. If Nicolas Sarkozy - by any sane standards the better of the two French Presidential candidates this May - is victorious, he promises even more of this. It’s insane.

  3. alecm, on December 3rd, 2006 at 1:54 pm Said:

    Jackie; so long as you are up to date with 10.3.9 or above, and (possibly?) a QuickTime7 license, you can now use USB webcams such as the Logitech QuickCamProForLaptops that I use when out on the road.

    I don’t *think* the QT7 license is necessary, but I have it on all my machines so cannot eliminate it from my statement.

    The support for USB rather than firewire has been added since the new embedded-in-the-laptop cameras are of USB type.

    You need a moderately hefty PPC cpu to make use of such, my 800MHz G4 iMac is the absolute minimum spec and tends to get swamped when doing Skype, which is when I use the G5 instead. If you have a 1GHz G4 or newer, you should be at least ok.

    If you wanna bounce ideas around, grab me on skype; personally I found iChat AV to be a PITA to set up (the “drills through all NAT firewalls” thing is only partially true) so skype video on mac is superb.

  4. alecm, on December 3rd, 2006 at 1:55 pm Said:

    ps: does having opened themselves up to a commodity market, make things better? :-)

  5. Jackie Danicki, on December 3rd, 2006 at 1:59 pm Said:

    Argh, what a PITA all around! I seriously considered just buying a new MacBook Pro (which comes with a built-in camera), but even that would be a rather extreme solution to my impatience.

  6. Ged, on December 3rd, 2006 at 4:34 pm Said:

    http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore.woa/6964042/wa/PSLID?mco=945E9B38&nplm=T4791&wosid=F12LF8bfbzNn2CGwlpE1IXIevTO

    http://www.amazon.com/Apple-iSight-Conferencing-Webcam-Autofocus/dp/B0007KX4VU/sr=8-1/qid=1165157711/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-2888742-8643044?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

  7. Jackie Danicki, on December 3rd, 2006 at 4:39 pm Said:

    Thanks, Ged, but like I said - I need this urgently. I can’t wait for a shipment from the US, unfortunately.

    Also, TinyURL: Learn it, live it, love it.

  8. mj, on December 3rd, 2006 at 7:29 pm Said:

    This would seem to be the obvious thing http://www.ecamm.com/mac/imagewebcam/ and if not, almost any USB webcam will work with the driver from ioexperts.com. Plus any FireWire CamCorder (I have a Canon, but have used heaps of models) will work in a pinch.

  9. Jackie Danicki » I got my iSight, on December 16th, 2006 at 1:04 am Said:

    […] All I had to do was fly all the way to New York and buy one. Thanks to Damian for helping me test it out tonight. (The weird thing is, I got the distinct impression this iSight is one someone had already opened and returned to Apple. The sticker meant to be sealing the box wasn’t actually sealing it, and the sticker sealing the folder containing the warranty and user guide was crinkled at the edge, as it would be if someone had already scratched it open.) Posted by Jackie Danicki | […]

  10. Miss Cranstons, on December 17th, 2006 at 8:05 am Said:

    The online Apple Store just told me that a couple of days ago Apple took the iSight out, is no longer selling them, and has no plans to bring them back. Asked why, the salesman said Apple just figures all the new computer have cameras built in, so they don’t need to sell them separately. I don’t know if this guy knew what he was talking about or not, but I can’t find any online seller with stock. Good luck to you in finding one.