
GoPro has discontinued its developer program - byteCoder
https://developer.gopro.com
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radium3d
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.

~~~
chrsstrm
Except it's already clear they want customer lock-in on their products. You
can't use the remote app without being logged in (which I can't even get to
connect, but that's another complaint). Something about some cloud service
that costs $5/month to use. Their remote app is clearly the funnel to sell
this service, so why would they open up their API? At this point I'm just
going to start buying Chinese knock-offs that don't make me create an online
account to use the hardware.

~~~
stryk
FWIW, I can heartily recommend SJCAM -- their build quality is great for a
Chinese knock-off and the resulting image/video quality is really really good
for the price of the hardware. However, be careful when on eBay/aliExpress
I've actually seen other vendors knocking off the knock-offs.

~~~
eropple
To get the best deal out of any of the knockoffs and competitors, though, you
have to get a little bit knowledgeable about the camera tech. The SJ5000 is a
_large_ step up over the SJ4000 because it uses a 16MP Panasonic MN34110PA
sensor rather than the SJ4000's 3.5MP Aptina AR0330 (which they upscale to
call a "12MP sensor"). And that's just what a $25 bump gets you! This isn't
something you're just gonna know, though--do your research.

~~~
starky
Not too sure about the Panasonic, but the AR0330 is an ancient sensor, being
about 6-7 years old now. Not the type of image sensor I'd be wanting to buy
these days.

~~~
eropple
I agree. But the SJ4000 is $99 and the SJ5000 is $125 on Amazon, and that's a
pretty big step for $25.

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danso
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_Video)

~~~
rgbrenner
I agree, but disagree there was a hard ceiling for GoPro.

Companies may have an initial success.. but the rest of the world never stands
still while they rake in money. Especially not in tech, which gets cheaper
every year and can be manufactured fairly easy by competitors.

GoPro had an initial success with their camera.. and it was their duty to
expand beyond that into other lines of business and diversify their revenue
streams.

When I hear GoPro, I think cameras (like everyone else).. and that was their
failure. There's really nothing about the name "GoPro" that is attached to
cameras--it only means that because of their marketing and failure to expand.
I don't think there's a reason the name GoPro couldn't be put on a variety of
high end outdoor gear--surfboards, snowboards, etc. GoPro could easily stand
for pro-level/quality outdoor gear.

What's surprising is that they watched other camera manufacturers fail and
disappear, and yet didn't pursue other lines vigorously.

~~~
oceanswave
Not only that, they haven’t kept up in camera tech, but still charge a premium
price. Built-in mechanical stabilization, additional sensors such as gps and
altimeter, color capture could have justified a premium price. Expansion into
the drone market came as too little too late, and the recall hurt that effort
immensely. Seems like there are video applicstions outside the ‘action cam’
domain - security, monitoring, etc that players such as nest have gotten into,
granted that’s outside their X-treme DNA.

So yeah, a sale is probably best for them, but outside their brand, what kind
of IP do they really have that boosts their value...

~~~
rgbrenner
Yes, I agree.

Another great avenue for them would have been activity trackers (like fitbit),
cyclometers, and/or gps gear for hiking/marine/air (like garmin).

They've really left a lot unexplored. Instead of more cameras, other gear,
etc... they tried one version of a drone they had to recall for power issues,
then almost immediately discontinued it. That's a pretty low-key effort for a
multi-billion dollar 16 year old company

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abritinthebay
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.

~~~
atomical
Garmin beat them to the 360. My biggest complaint is that GoPro mounts are
cheap and there isn't a high quality gimbal for the GoPro.

~~~
noarchy
>My biggest complaint is that GoPro mounts are cheap and there isn't a high
quality gimbal for the GoPro.

I went through two of GoPro's awful, plastic mounts before buying a metal,
third-party mount, and never looked back. The two mounts that broke sent my
GoPro careening down asphalt in each case, and I was lucky to both not lose it
and to not have it be destroyed. So while the mounts are junk, the unit itself
has proved to be very durable.

~~~
abritinthebay
They used to do some metal mounts, back in the Hero2 days. Shame they stopped.

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TaylorGood
Gopro would’ve been a beautiful lifestyle business had they stayed private and
only did cameras. The weight of scaling post-ICO sank them.

~~~
JBReefer
Do you mean post IPO? Internet funbux should have nothing to do with GoPro -
they sell a real product that actually has value.

~~~
asterius
The investors didn't want standard returns, the valuation was based on them
growing rapidly for years, which means new markets.

They could have made money from their drone product line by diversifying
beyond 'toy'. But that would have required integration partners, different
sales channels etc, and they didn't have the skills to build that.

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dylan604
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.

~~~
otsdr
They have open sourced CineForm in October last year (
[https://gopro.github.io/cineform-sdk/](https://gopro.github.io/cineform-sdk/)
); also, "SMPTE has standardized the CineForm codec as the SMPTE ST 2073 VC-5
video compression standard".

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bob_theslob646
Why would they do this?

~~~
aphextron
They're finished as a company. They never were able to innovate beyond "it's
an HD camera with wifi", and low priced competition ate them up.

~~~
ClassyJacket
Exactly, a hundred Chinese companies can pump out cameras like theirs. What
they had going for them was their genericized trademark of a name - people
calling all action cameras GoPros - which eventually would have or did come
back and bite them. Their stock price is less than a tenth what it once was.

~~~
ravenstine
People are buying Chinese action cameras in such droves? Everyone I know with
an action camera owns a GoPro. Something seems amiss to me, though perhaps
things are different in California. But then why just these cameras? There are
plenty of types of devices that have viable Chinese knockoffs for cheap, yet
the non-Chinese brands thrive or at least sustain.

~~~
dylan604
If you own a GoPro, you probably have had to buy a second one. I personally do
not know of a single GoPro owner that has not damaged/lost/whatever their
camera. After you buy the first one at full price today, do you buy a second
one or go out and buy something else? It used to be that you could only get
another GoPro, so GoPro sales looked good. Now, for $70, why not try the
something else? Based on sales, looks like a lot of people are choosing the
latter.

~~~
jsemrau
For most people the latter option is most useful. I bought already 4 SJCams
because I end up losing them. The pictures are acceptable. Sound is not needed
if underwater or while driving. So all good.

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yabol
Any recommendation for alternative camera with good API?

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dessant
Off topic, but if anyone from their marketing team reads this, one of the
activities[1] on the HERO6 Black sales page[2] is a surefire way to crack your
skull open.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/ZuOmIrV.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ZuOmIrV.jpg)

[2]
[https://shop.gopro.com/EMEA/cameras/hero6-black/CHDHX-601-ma...](https://shop.gopro.com/EMEA/cameras/hero6-black/CHDHX-601-master.html)

~~~
mistersquid
That promotional video is fantastic. Beautiful scenery, photogenic people,
shots of pristine nature, even the family visiting a theme park inspires a
primal kind of longing and deep pride in how awesome it is to be an incarnated
human.

The score--Odesza's "A Moment Apart" from the album of the same name--
contributes to the emotion in no small way.

Given the discontinuation of the developer program is in line with the gradual
decline of the GoPro brand, the video is at once sublime and forlorn and I
can't help but feel GoPro's fate is to be lamented.

One can almost read in the GoPro's plight the unavoidable fate of humankind
and the planet on which we live.

OK, I know all of that is a bit overwrought, and this is my first exposure to
Odesza. But I was so affected that I decided to buy the album and, I know, I'm
going to put it on repeat for the next month or so.

Thanks for the link.

~~~
wepple
I actually think gopros gorgeous videos may have contributed to its downfall.

They’re all shot on GoPro, and they make a big deal about this. So everyone
who buys one assumes they may be able to make videos that are also awesome.

Then reality comes crashing down, and you realize theirs was shot on 5
continents with tens of thousands of dollars worth of extra gear, and days of
work on high-end editing rigs, and yours looks like you should’ve just shot it
on iphone.

~~~
ghaff
I don't know about contributing to their downfall. But GoPro with all their
videos and so forth definitely create this aspirational branding that a lot of
people like to see themselves being associated with.

Then they shoot a few videos skiing down an intermediate ski slope and realize
this is all pretty boring and they don't kayak off waterfalls or jump off
cliffs themselves.

Personally, I feel the same way about drones. Every time I think about getting
a good one I realize I'd shoot some videos around my house and then... I
dunno. Maybe I'd take it out somewhere but really they're sort obnoxious so
probably it would sit on the shelf.

~~~
wepple
Yeah, I think you nailed it.

I remember taking the footage from a mountain biking trip and excitedly
looking through it only to realize it was painfully boring. I forgot for a
moment that I’m not a professional mountain biker, and can’t even do a double
backflip. Even I didn’t really want to watch it; why would anyone else?

