On February 17, 1994, Apple officially revealed its first digital camera, the QuickTake 100. However, the camera was not a big seller. Apple ended its digital camera line three years later.
Apple launched its Vision Pro mixed reality headset earlier this month. So far, the reviews have been mixed. In Mark Gurman’s latest PowerOn newsletter for Bloomberg, he notes that while some people who have bought the $3,499 product love it, others have already returned it to their Apple Store for various reasons.
It’s a reminder that not all of Apple’s product launches are home runs. That was certainly true of the company’s first venture into stand-alone digital cameras. This nearly forgotten Apple device, the QuickTake 100, was first announced by the company 30 years ago this week, on February 17, 1994, as part of the MacWorld trade show in Japan.
Apple started working on a digital camera, with the code name Venus, in 1992. The company decided to partner with the leading camera company at that time, Kodak, for the project. Kodak ended up creating the CCD sensor for the QuickTake 100, and Apple partnered with the Japan-based camera maker Chinon to actually build the product.
The QuickTake 100’s design didn’t really look like a normal film camera.
