by radium3d on 1/20/18, 2:34 AM
GoPro could turn themselves around if they supported their customer community by opening up their hardware interfaces more and allowed more robust fine-grain control over aperature, shutter, iso, white balance via usb and wifi/Bluetooth with API support so we developers can create sale-generating software that makes their fantastic hardware more useful. It won't hurt them to open these controls up. Also make streaming to devices in real-time with as low latency as possible would be nice. Also lowering the price couldn't hurt but they do have one of the better waterproof systems out there so maybe that's not feasible? All of this would open up their market to tinkering enthusiasts as well without making things more complex for their existing market.
by danso on 1/20/18, 1:49 AM
GoPro's IPO and initial success was inspiring because it didn't seem any kind of specialized camera/video hardware company could exist outside of the smartphone umbrella -- especially after Flip [0] got bought up not long after the first iPhone. But it seems like there was always going to be a hard ceiling for GoPro. Not just because of the continued improvement of smartphone portability and camera features, but because of the limited potential customer base of sports/travel enthusiasts.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_Video
by abritinthebay on 1/20/18, 4:35 AM
People in here are talking like GoPro’s issues are market related. That’s not true at all.
If you know anyone who is or has worked there you know it’s because they are incredibly poorly run. They routinely waste development time on nothing projects, failing to ship code - even bug fixes - for literal years.
Their problems come from one of the most disfunctional managing cultures I’ve heard of in the Bay Area - and that’s a high bar.
by TaylorGood on 1/20/18, 3:43 AM
Gopro would’ve been a beautiful lifestyle business had they stayed private and only did cameras. The weight of scaling post-ICO sank them.
by dylan604 on 1/20/18, 6:58 AM
The saddest part of GoPro to me is that they own the Cineform codec. I love Cineform, and cried when GoPro acquired it. I liked it better than ProRes to be honest. Apple ProRes won because Apple. I worked for company (said company no longer exists) that was internally talking about purchasing Cineform way before GoPro, somewhere around 2008/09. However, this company was going to submit it for ISO standardization. It's a lovely codec, but it did not take off because it was always surrounded by questions of longevity. GoPro's purchase of it did not improve the longevity question, and made it seem Prosumer at best.
by bob_theslob646 on 1/20/18, 12:11 AM
Why would they do this?
by yabol on 1/20/18, 8:21 AM
Any recommendation for alternative camera with good API?
by dessant on 1/20/18, 2:42 AM
