Apple seeks to hire camera expert for iPad team

More evidence of a planned camera addition to the iPad has come from a job opening at Apple for a performance quality assurance engineer to work on still and video capture in the iPad Media department.

The job, posted back on Feb. 9 and discovered Thursday by Cult of Mac, is for a "Performance QA Engineer, iPad Media," to work within Apple's Interactive Media Group. The software quality engineer must have a strong technical background in order to test still, video and audio capture and playback frameworks.

"Build on your QA experience and knowledge of digital camera technology (still and video) to develop and maintain testing frameworks for both capture and playback pipelines," the job description reads. "You will work together with the development team to ensure quality. Your focus will mainly be on performance testing and developing performance measurement test tools."

The full-time position is based in Cupertino, Calif., at Apple's corporate headquarters. It requires candidates have a bachelor of science in computer science or equivalent experience, with three or more years experience in software quality assurance.

The job listing is yet another piece of evidence that Apple has plans for a camera in future iPads. A potential spot for a forward-facing camera was found in a replacement part for the iPad soon after the device was unveiled. But later, a teardown of the iPad post-release found that spot was actually used for the device's ambient light sensor.

But the iPhone OS 3.2 SDK has also been found to include mentions of video chat, suggesting that Apple explored the possibility of a forward-facing camera in its multi-touch device.

Introduced last week, the beta of iPhone OS 4.0 also features references to iChat, including framework strings referencing "front facing" and "back facing." Evidence of iChat sounds has also been found in the pre-release software. While it will hit the iPhone this summer, iPhone OS 4.0 is scheduled to be available for the iPad this fall.

Of late, Apple has been adding cameras to many of its portable devices. Last year, Apple planned to introduce a camera upgrade to its iPod touch line, but alleged technical issues led to the feature being scrapped. Apple did, however, introduce a new iPod nano equipped with a video camera.