QuickTake’s strange design may have turned off some potential users.

Photographers dig Macs, so why doesn’t Apple sell a camera of its own? Well, it did. But you had to be fast if you wanted a QuickTake. Apple sold its own digital-camera brand between 1994 and 1997, axing it as part of the product genocide that occurred when Steve Jobs returned to the company’s helm. While they lasted, those digital cameras recorded a handful of pictures at a then-impressive 640x480 pixels.

But with fans always ready to buy “one more thing,” is it time for Apple to redefine the camera experience? The company didn’t offer any comment to our inquiry, so we asked Apple industry veterans.

“I’d be surprised if Apple got into the digital camera business, outside of the iPhone’s camera and built-in iSights,” Leander Kahney, author of Inside Steve’s Brain (see interview), noted in an email. He added, “It’s a business better left to the experts like Canon and Nikon.”

Dan Knight, creator of Low End Mac (www.lowendmac.com) also thinks that Apple should continue to stay away from digital cameras because the company can’t claim that niche. He said via email, “Apple has nothing innovative to bring to the table. The Apple II, Lisa, Macintosh, and Newton were all innovative. The feature set and interface on the iPod made it innovative, [and] the iPhone embodies innovation. . . . [Apple] has nothing to gain and much to lose if it tries to reenter the [camera] field.”