It's because the fundamental design of the laptop only allows for a paper thin camera. By comparison the iPhone and iPad have absolutely tons of depth to work with to mount a proper camera module and lens. Unless you want the display lid to be 4-5 times thicker, these are the types of cameras that fit into the lid.
Apple probably has tons of analytics about how often the isight cameras are used vs how often a user's other devices (iPhone) are used for camera-related activity. I have personally never turned mine on with both my Late 2013 and Late 2016 15" models.
I’ve once read an article which states that a key reason why manufacturers don’t bother to make more than 720p web cameras is because many conference/video calling software including FaceTime support only 720p (and those which support higher don’t do so very well). So to have one any better would be pointless unless you wanted to take selfies I guess.
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Your face is quite a valuable identified. They use the face for many forms of identification. In my work and research, I don't uses it this way, but some applications use facial ID for threat assessment and LEO activity.
And then there is "Deep Fakes" where GANs are used to create very high quality fakes. And the quality is a function of the number of sample images available.
We have Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat with millions of people happily posting selfies and a lot more.
Now, try get them to now also post their passwords...
Your face isn’t as valuable as you think it is. It just isn’t a security risk otherwise you wouldn’t go out without a paper bag on your head. There aren’t many things you hide from others as much as your credentials.
It is both irrational human behaviour but also a normal phenomena for people to be scared about their webcam and mics being hacked. But when you break it down, you realise it makes no sense to protect your face more than your credentials online.