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Apple Adds Email-Based FaceTime Support in iOS 4.1 Beta 3
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So if u want to dig/read more on how a NATed iPod will work with faceTime, i suggest u read up on the protocols that faceTime uses.
STUN and TURN allows the device to find the network environment where it resides
In the original iOS4, the cellular network was required for the FIRST FaceTime call ever placed on a device (registration with Apple?).
But this does not seem to be the case anymore in the subsequent iOS updates (this was part of my research for work...). Now no one is sure how the device is registered (yet) but simple deduction can tell you that SOMEONE needs to hold that information (network address of the remote party, i mean come on u dont' expect your phone to know where the other person in randomly just cuz u know their email address right?)
After u get all that information (using STUN/TURN then SIP INVITE to find the best path between the two network nodes, FINALLY it is passed to RTP for the actual UDP packet transfer between the two phones. At the termination of the call, a SIP Terminate message is sent to end the call.
How does Apple KNOW where you are?
Read what Apple is doing with Push Notification. Take a look at this:
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/l...html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40008194-CH102-SW1
Specifically - APNs uses a persistent IP connection for implementing push notifications.
Push might be implemented differently if u dig down to the nitty gritty. but the overall concept is/should be similar.
For the "privacy" settings, ummm go try Settings -> Phone -> FaceTime On/OFF. Btw, there is a setting to turn off push notification as well.... but i'm sure u already know that.
btw, notice the long messages.
its not trivial. But if u want to know a broad overview it is probably something like this
1. Alice pushes faceTime button
2. Alice's phone find the network topography - STUN/TURN (open internet, NAT, symmetric NAT, etc etc)
3. "MAGIC STEP" to find Bob (nothing real magical...finding the info a central server hosted by Apple)
4. Alice sends an SIP Invite to Bob
5. Bob finds his network topography - STUN/TURN
6. Bob Accepts, and they start happily talking using RTP.
I'm not so sure about that. The other day in iChat, I noticed that my wife's iPhone number was in my Buddy list. I hadn't put her there, because she didn't have another computer to chat with. She appeared there after my iPhone 4 update. And what appeared in the Buddy list was not her name but her iPhone number with a little WiFi symbol next to it.
I think it has been very apparent from the beginning that Apple will role this out to the iPod Touch, iPad and iChat on the Mac! They would be beyond stupid not to, it is just logical.
We probably won't see iChat FaceTime until 10.7 though
My question is do you think we will see iChat for Windows? Or will Apple hope to have 3rd parties add FaceTime support into their apps such as skype, aim, msn, yahoo messenger, gtalk, etc. etc.??? I think it makes more sense that they would let the 3rd parties handle that. It will be interesting to see how fast the adoption through 3rd parties goes due to their own interests and proprietary technologies. I think they might get pressured into it by the market though as this becomes a viable standard and threatens cell carriers!
We probably won't see iChat FaceTime until 10.7 though
My question is do you think we will see iChat for Windows? Or will Apple hope to have 3rd parties add FaceTime support into their apps such as skype, aim, msn, yahoo messenger, gtalk, etc. etc.??? I think it makes more sense that they would let the 3rd parties handle that. It will be interesting to see how fast the adoption through 3rd parties goes due to their own interests and proprietary technologies. I think they might get pressured into it by the market though as this becomes a viable standard and threatens cell carriers!
I'm pretty sure I've read all those... the issue still is... are they replacing the current registration points (AIM, jabber, skype, etc) with their own, and if so, where, and will they interconnect with these other chat registrars.
So... If I have 20 email addresses, which is posted there?
The devil is in the details. Unlike a phone number (each device basically has just one), my iphone currently has 5 email addresses. does Apple now have all of them? how? opt-in? or scraping my mail config? or what? Do I register with me.com? Or does it only use my ITMS email (which is not any of the 5 on my iPhone?)
This is why phones work so well, and email so poorly as a instant communications scheme.
I think it was you who noted that it's a privacy issue. Is it a trade off to let Apple 'know' that 'Bob@user.com' is currently at 129.111.11.131 which is assigned to P*ssy Galore's Exotic Emporium?' just so Bob can facetime with his wife "Honey, I'll be home in err... 30 minutes... No.. nothing behind me... nothing at all..." and have it logged at Apple for some "Patriot Security Act" to come along and ask for it at later date
Not that I don't mind that trade off, but it is a trade off... with Cell phones, you have proximity... with wifi, you eventually get down to a server log. If Apple is one of those server logs, how do they handle privacy concerns of all the users/countries they will be serving?
If it even more non-unique than that. You may have multiple devices with those same 20 email addresses present in the mail/system configuration. Which one of the devices is the call suppose to be routed to ? They all can be on the internet at the same time.
It is all doable. The problematical part is the "zero configuration and zero authentication" part of Facetime that suppose to be one of the new magical features. If you configure your account on the Facetime server ( I'm email address foo@bar.com and on device "iPad" ) then you get uniqueness back. For a phone number it is not a problem since the phone number is unique to the device.
Note also that phone numbers also route calls. Can pick up a phone in the US and call any country in the world. The US phone companies don't know where the remote phones are located, they just know how to route the calls to the standardized systems that do know how to route them. If there is nothing in facetime so that muliple registery servers figure out how to connect people ( i.e., everyone has to ping Apple's servers to get connected) then this really isn't much of a new standard. Same of balkanization problem that the IM servers have classically had.
Again is it is all doable if put the onus of routing back on the clients and make configuration overt.
They already know that. The phones ping their severs. Most macs ping there servers for software update notifications/default apple homepage settings / etc.
and they can all ring (like my google voice account)
simple interface.... on your facetime open page "GLAG@alkj.com" is calling "Address20@outof.many.com" [answer][ignore]
But that's not the issue... don't derail. The issue is HOW those 20 addresses get registered. Dynamically? Opt-In?
And this face time server is where... and why, and how... like you say magic... it all gets back to my ... and then a miracle occurs.... statement
[I don't see it as a miracle... just a key component of the protocol... WHO CONTROLS THE SERVER, AND HOW DO YOU OPT IN?]
There are hundreds of ways to do it, which one is Insanely Great?
err... switches route calls, based on prefixes and eventually final mile circuit assignments. blah@blahblah.com is not a good routing mechanism for realtime assignment... 129.111.222.252:5959 is.
The question is how do you map the email into the IP... who owns the routing table? who is this magical facetime server and how does it get populated?
agreed. Who is serving up abc@def.com? Skype? Google Voice? Apple? AIM? How is that made routable? Phone companies have 'owned' parts of the 10 digit US phone service for years, so routing is pretty much like IP routing (218-376 goes here 212 333 goes there), and even allows for redirection (ability to move your phone number between cell companies).
Errr.... Like /etc/hosts? I have to enter in every routing bit into my contacts list? I don't think you meant to say 'onus of routing back on the clients' That's so 1970's..
exactly... but an Ipod touch is not a phone. how/who does it ping.
and only cell phone ping. dumb phones just ring. (or signal they're off hook/busy).
Most macs ping weekly. I don't use an Apple Homepage. my network lease is up daily, and I move my laptop hourly. Am I now needing to send a 'HERE I AM' Message every time I reestablish a DHCP lease?
Details people, the devil is in the details.
All of a sudden, are you seeing the possibility of your iPod Touch being tracked on every WiFi it connects to, because you opted in to a FaceTime account, and it also knows all the Email addresses you use? ("IHATEOBAMA@WHITESONLY.COM" is currently at the Starbucks at 123 4th street in Hopkins MA... send in the black helicopters)
Which brings up another point, is Apple sworn to the same secrecy (or lack thereof) as Phone companies as part of this FaceTime thing... or can the fact that they don't 'switch' the circuit for the call (P2P) make them only able to state who is talking to whom, but the Facetime traffic itself is not their concern.
Before I start, we are really arguing about nothing here because until Apple release the standard and how all this is implemented, there is no concrete conclusion (but plenty of evidence) that this is the way that it's done.
With that said, let me say one thing. Privacy concern that most people care about is blown way out of proportions.
Again if we draw a parallel with Push Notification, Apple is collecting no MORE information about you or anyone else using faceTime. Just because there is a look up table for the initiator to "find" your recipient, does not translate to the communication being "Logged" by Apple.
This is no different btw, than Push notification. They (not in theory, but actuality) know where you are (in a networking sense) and then pushing that message to you. The only difference is that the unique identifier (that identifies your device, and subsequently yourself) is your device token.
Now implementing FaceTime with an Email address would be a challenge. I see where you are coming from with the whole zero-configuration thing. Maybe they have a solution, maybe they don't. But much like a person can have 20 emails, they can also have 20 devices, so I am not sure where you are going there.
A unique identifier is a unique identifier. if Bob has bob@gmail.com and it is registered for faceTime, then well people who know bob would probably initiate chat with that address. Much like your co-workers probably dial your work phone, they can care less if u have a cell phone or a home phone.
This is more or less different than push technology (especially in mobile space) because your mac polls (pull) data (on a server) periodically. while push notification (and also faceTime) pushes data to you when it is available (say someone calling u.... u aren't on the faceTime line every 10 seconds asking the server if someone has called you yet)
Now the "privacy" concern is that Apple, knows where to push the data to.
but hey, wait a minute... isn't that the same thing where the phone company knows where to route your call to?
Anyway this whole discussion boils down to that last step of how u (as a network node) is identified. I do see an issue with a bottle neck at Apple's server if all the lookups of FaceTime requires communication to their server. But this is no different than say a chat client (like skype, AIM, MSN, facebook) that knows you are in front of your computer. (go to google maps and press that round dot to the left.... 8-9/10 times it can pretty accurately determine your location)
All this, and they still don't have a native built in iChat.
What are they waiting for? They could implement iChat with video chat and AIM/MobileMe and put all the functionality in one place.
What are they waiting for? They could implement iChat with video chat and AIM/MobileMe and put all the functionality in one place.
Wrong topic. Don't assume that a topic about face time which doesn't talk about the fix means no fix.
As for the first, I'm not arguing...I'm asking (I'll argue that stupid guesses are stupid, but other than that, I'm looking for some facts or good guesses, based on the beta).
but cell phone users know that their tracked by their cell tower connections. No big deal. The bigger deal is that iPod Touches, iPads, and Laptops are not falling into that category... and I'll answer what my concern is below.
Now implementing FaceTime with an Email address would be a challenge. I see where you are coming from with the whole zero-configuration thing. Maybe they have a solution, maybe they don't. But much like a person can have 20 emails, they can also have 20 devices, so I am not sure where you are going there. [/quote]
does 1, 2, 20, or whatever number of email addrs go to Apple for registration. And will they have the smarts to make sure I don't register _your_ email address (verification)... i'm sure they do, but that makes 'zero config' a lot harder, UNLESS they use your ITMS or me.com email addresses which are already on file.... that's where I started with this thread.
I'm less worried about multiple devices... I see all of them 'ringing' and which ever answers gets the voice data link. It's telling 20 devices they are ringing, which is the problem.
yes, but it's not a network address for direct communications. phone numbers and IPs are, by nature of their routing methods. Email [store and forward] is not a direct identifier.
how do they know he's on? registering the address is one thing, but registering an address on various IPs as it moves around the internet is another.
personally, I use google voice, as the other 2 are called as my work phone forwards to both;-). But I have 3 emails... which one (or all of them) should be connected to my iPod Touch? How is it done?
but you still haven't splained to me how they know where to push?
and the 20 email addresses registered to it. and with a little mapping, where geographically that is (why do a see a TOR like anonymizer playing into untraceable facetime accounts;-) )
yep, but they are publically regulated as common carriers. Apple is not. Therein lies the rub.
Anyway this whole discussion boils down to that last step of how u (as a network node) is identified. [/QUOTE]
To which you still haven't answered my question.
FaceTime is nearly useless until they add the functionality to iChat, or even better other phones.
Interesting, I'm guessing she was on your wifi network at the time? I remember reading about an "iChatAgent" process being found in the iOS 4 beta...I would guess it was using Bonjour.
But you're forgetting that MI-FIs get their data from the carriers' cellular data networks. Therefore you are just as reliant on carriers and their greedy data limits as you were before...
Xmpp
It may be an XMPP (Jabber) address rather than just an email address. My XMPP address is identical to my email address. iChat already supports XMPP, so I'm guessing this is just an extension upon XMPP to establish a SIP session for Facetime. If Facetime gets no response from an XMPP server for your email address, it will not present it as an option.
It may be an XMPP (Jabber) address rather than just an email address. My XMPP address is identical to my email address. iChat already supports XMPP, so I'm guessing this is just an extension upon XMPP to establish a SIP session for Facetime. If Facetime gets no response from an XMPP server for your email address, it will not present it as an option.
iChat should have this too. Too bad iChat is an application that is only bundled with OS X and can't get major updates until major updates in the entire OS.
Maybe iChat will be merged with FaceTime? They'll get rid of iChat and have FaceTime as the new app...
I agree. I am almost certain that the article is wrong to call it an "email address." It is almost certainly an XMPP (aka iChat) address. Part of the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is that the user would announce their presence on the Server. This would answer all the questions about "how does someone know where I am?" In fact with XMPP (iChat) you can have multiple points of presence active at the same time, each with its own priority. The last place you logged in is assumed to be your current location. So you can be logged into XMPP/iChat/FaceTime on your iPhone and iMac at the same time and direct the call as you wish.
