Apple has been granted a patent for a wearable camera that could put GoPro’s booming action camera monopoly into serious jeopardy. This morning, shares of the smaller company plummeted by a stunning 15% in the wake of this patent news. It just goes to show how disruptive Apple can be even in the minds of investors and the general public when it enters a new market.
Coming pack to the patent itself, filed first in March 2012, the camera can be mounted on bikes or scuba masks, and will take pictures and record sounds under water. It can be operated remotely, says the application, which references the GoPro HD Hero2 digital camera.
However, notes the application, the HD Hero2 camera includes only a single image capture system, which captures images from the front of the camera, making it more susceptible to damage and wind resistance.
“Thus, there remains a need to provide a digital camera that can be used in a “conventional” capture mode, where the digital camera is held by the user while capturing digital images, and which can also be used in “streamlined” mounted mode,” reads the application released by the US Patents and Trademark Office.
However, for Apple, getting a patent for a video camera is a far cry from actually producing one and putting it on sale. Companies often patent ideas they never pursue commercially. GoPro can rest easy, for now.