Facetime WTF moment

[corriewf]

Ok so facetime looked great! How smooth an awesome.......until Steve said wifi only...I then do a iWTF moment. This is a cell phone right? He does know that this is a mobile device that won't have access to wifi most of the time when facetime would be applicable. Then on top of that at the end he says wifi only for 2010!!!!! Yikes! Another iWTF moment.

This tells me several things:

1. No 3G video calls for half of the life of the phone. 6 months.
2. This could be another feature that AT&T drags their feet to turn on, like MMS. Could be a year, two years.
3. Steve said working with carriers, that means $$$$$. More fees for video calling. I could be looking at anywhere from $10-$20 extra per month for my wife and me.

I loved everything about the iPhone but cmon, this should have been ironed out 6 months ago with the carriers. I don't want to wait 6+ months to use a feature and then have my jaw drop when AT&T probably over charges for it.

 

[johnrs]

Yeah that sucks a little. So glad we don't have AT&T in the UK..

 

[Hawkeye411]

^ +1 here in Canada.

 

[corriewf]

Yeah that sucks a little. So glad we don't have AT&T in the UK..

It is very possible that even though you are in the UK, it will still be wifi only. Steve said working out the deal with "carriers". We only have one carrier here so he must have been talking about other countries as well. This could very well end up like tethering, turned on by an OS upgrade in other countries and never turned on here in the US. When Steve said nothing but wifi face time for 2010, I think he meant everywhere.

iWTF!

Then new iPhone uses the front facing and back for face time. We are talking about HD quality video calls with the back camera. I imagine carriers even over seas are not ready for that kind of data traffic.

 

[Stealthipad]

NO CARRIER not even verizone would what a device like the iPhone 4 with video teleconferencing on it sucking up all the bandwidth!

Thanks GOD that they will not allow it!

That would be STUPID!

 

[Hawkeye411]

Video chat over 3G has been available in other countries for a long time. It amazes me when hear that AT&T delay adopting things like this.

Hopefully you get video chat in the US over 3G soon!!

 

[androiphone]

It is very possible that even though you are in the UK, it will still be wifi only. Steve said working out the deal with "carriers". We only have one carrier here so he must have been talking about other countries as well. This could very well end up like tethering, turned on by an OS upgrade in other countries and never turned on here in the US. When Steve said nothing but wifi face time for 2010, I think he meant everywhere.

iWTF!

Then new iPhone uses the front facing and back for face time. We are talking about HD quality video calls with the back camera. I imagine carriers even over seas are not ready for that kind of data traffic.

might have just said carriers to save AT&Ts blushes.

 

[corriewf]

Video chat over 3G has been available in other countries for a long time. It amazes me when hear that AT&T delay adopting things like this.

Hopefully you get video chat in the US over 3G soon!!

Like the poster above you said, I dunno if 3G networks can handle the 5 mp camera, even in your country.

The Evo does it over 3G but I think it uses 4g for the 8 mp back cam.

 

[chriskzoo]

With capped data plans, I don't see the reason to not enable it. Personally I'll be going with the 200MB plan which should be good for my use (I'm on WiFi at home and in the office), but what I think AT&T is probably scared of is every mom in the country throwing on FaceTime to stream little Johnny's soccer game every weekend for a couple hours.

 

[Dammit Cubs]

Video chat over 3G has been available in other countries for a long time. It amazes me when hear that AT&T delay adopting things like this.

Hopefully you get video chat in the US over 3G soon!!

There were also smartphones WAYYYYyyyyyyy before the iphone as well. So just because a product had it years ago doesn't mean its old tech. Back then, you didn't have the infrastructure in place and you don't have it in place now.

Phones back then had douche bag mode too....maybe apple will bring that back for iphone 5.

 

[corriewf]

With capped data plans, I don't see the reason to not enable it. Personally I'll be going with the 200MB plan which should be good for my use (I'm on WiFi at home and in the office), but what I think AT&T is probably scared of is every mom in the country throwing on FaceTime to stream little Johnny's soccer game every weekend for a couple hours.

Good point. Even if the milfs blast their little Johnny go lucky, they are still capped.

The fees are already hard to choke down on AT&T, with added fees for face time, it might be unbearable.

 

[scaredpoet]

Video chat over 3G has been available in other countries for a long time.

Yes, just not in the scale that the iPhone is going to offer. A few thousands, maybe tens of thousands of users occasionally and intermittently interacting with each other using one of many of nondescript face-to-face video-calling platforms, some of which are open and others of which are proprietary, and we'll just leave it up to you to figure out which of these modes fits your particular paradigm (since some people got allll hung up over my simplification of this concept by merely using the word "skyping"... happy now?) with others at low-resolution video, a network could handle. MILLIONS of iPhone-to-iPhone video calls, on a retina screen no less? Not so much!

 

[corriewf]

Phones back then had douche bag mode too....maybe apple will bring that back for iphone 5.

ooooOoooo that douche bag mode sounds great! We could arrange a little face time and then compare douche bag modes into the sunset. I will record everything in HD and make a movie with iMovie. You can be the Asian woman and I can play the black guy from the keynote.

 

[goosnarrggh]

^ +1 here in Canada.

But Rogers' standard video calling feature is a cost-added premium service - it's billed by the minute, at a higher rate than voice calls, and neither your Anytime minute allowance nor your smartphone data package can be applied towards paying for it.

Facetime, due to its current reliance on WiFi, obviously handles the streaming video using the Internet as the backbone, and is a data-only application for which the network connection is just a pipe. Cell phone carriers hate being relegated to pipe status. They prefer to control, and therefore charge for, anything they view as value-added.

 

[Figbash Acrobat]

I don't think it's as easy a transition as you'd like to think. People are always complaining about AT&T. And though I've had significantly better signal coverage over the last 6 months, the strain this would put on their network would be huge. I'm sure this has been said before. It will happen, but for the time being I think I'd be happy with wifi-only Facetime.

However, that being said, I'm just as concerned about wifi stability for this feature. My iPad is always having wifi issues and I think that the Airport(s) aren't all that they're cracked up to be. This along with the limited wifi strength that all previous iPhone's have had led me to question Apple's grasp on wifi technology. And though the keynote environment is far different than most consumers' everyday use, it still points to a flaw and makes me worry about things like the stuttering and freezing exhibited on Steve's iPhone 4.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm still excited about the new phone! It'll be more of an issue (at first anyway) of finding friends/family with another iPhone 4. Nonetheless, I look forward to it.

 

[GoCubsGo]

1. No 3G video calls for half of the life of the phone. 6 months.

Sorry did I miss the 6 month reference in the Keynote? <serious question>
Whether or not I did I must say this feature over 3G is not what I'd personally want to see.

Yeah that sucks a little. So glad we don't have AT&T in the UK..

Why do you have video calling?

 

[androiphone]

Yes, just not in the scale that the iPhone is going to offer. A few thousands, maybe tens of thousands of users occasionally and intermittently skyping with others at low-resolution video, a network could handle. MILLIONS of iPhone-to-iPhone video calls, on a retina screen no less? Not so much!

the screen has nothing to do with it, it's the resolution that the video is sent that matters, and that will be nowhere near to the 720p recording the new iphone can do it will be VGA max maybe less

 

[androiphone]

SWhy do you have video calling?

we do on every phone that supports it, it's just apple being obnoxious and creating a new 'standard' that doesnt work with older video calling methods!

 

[GoCubsGo]

we do on every phone that supports it, it's just apple being obnoxious and creating a new 'standard' that doesnt work with older video calling methods!

Ah ok so you don't have it have it but the option is there on your carrier.

 

[corriewf]

Sorry did I miss the 6 month reference in the Keynote? <serious question>
Whether or not I did I must say this feature over 3G is not what I'd personally want to see.

Why do you have video calling?

Yeah he said it towards the end of the keynote.

 

[androiphone]

Ah ok so you don't have it have it but the option is there on your carrier.

I cant imagine why our networks won't support it on the same pricing model as video calling is, but there is one big advantage of it being wifi only and that is if you move away from wifi or wifi drops out you wouldnt be stung with any shock bills for using video for 20mins on your data connection.

 

[corriewf]

I cant imagine why our networks won't support it on the same pricing model as video calling is, but there is one big advantage of it being wifi only and that is if you move away from wifi or wifi drops out you wouldnt be stung with any shock bills for using video for 20mins on your data connection.

I think Steve is gonna wait until he can get unlimited agreements from carriers before he turns it on. IMO.

 

[goosnarrggh]

Yes, just not in the scale that the iPhone is going to offer. A few thousands, maybe tens of thousands of users occasionally and intermittently skyping with others at low-resolution video, a network could handle. MILLIONS of iPhone-to-iPhone video calls, on a retina screen no less? Not so much!

"Standard" video chat over 3G is not Skype-based, or fundamentally Internet-based at all. There is actually an optional mode of operation built into the 3G GSM spec, independent of the "internet data" capabilities of a phone and network operator which implements the standard, whereby a standard circuit-switched voice call can be transformed into a circuit-switched video call.

Skype and its ilk uses a packet-switched connection.

By the way, the iPhone 4's front facing camera is spec'ed as VGA quality, so the majority of Facetime conversations could be no more than 640x480 pixels in resolution -- nowhere near the maximum resolution offered by the iPhone 4's retina screen.

By comparison, 3G videophone standards call for typical resolutions of up to 352x288 pixels -- if Facetime does allow the full VGA resolution to be accessible, then there certainly will be an improvement over what's already out there.

 

[scaredpoet]

"Standard" video chat over 3G is not Skype-based, or fundamentally Internet-based at all.

However, Facetime is Internet-based. If it wasn't, we'd have it on 3G from launch. But we already know a good deal of the FaceTime specs: H.264 video, AAC audio, SIP protocol, STUN/TURN.... hmm, sounds a lot like packet-switching-friendly protocols to me!

By the way, the iPhone 4's front facing camera is spec'ed as VGA quality, so the majority of Facetime conversations could be no more than 640x480 pixels in resolution -- nowhere near the maximum resolution offered by retina screens.

I'll grant you that. But that still doesn't negate the anticipated huge increase in data volume compared to past users' experience with video calling. We had smartphones before the iPhone, and yet users didn't use nearly as much data until the iPhone and similar-breed phones came to market. Likewise, we've had video calling before, it was just uncommon for many people to have the phones capable of doing it. This too, will change starting June 24.

My original point stands: 3G carriers (and NOT just AT&T) probably blanched at the idea of millions of these already data-hungry iPhones increasing their utilization of the data network even further now that they can multitask AND do face to face videoconferencing. They most likely counted on the fact that previous implementations of phones with front-facing cameras were limited in their availability and interoperability, and so up to now, videoconferencing was just a very expensive and rarely-used bauble on certain phones. Not so anymore.

To be fair: I really don't see this getting used very often, even on the iPhone 4. I deal with networks and videoconferencing as part of my job, and the thing I notice most is that the majority of people seem to hate how they look on a video camera, and will avoid being on a face-to-face video session whenever they can. The carriers, however, probably don't want to take the risk, and require some prodding by Apple to allow it (and most likely at significant extra cost).

 

[QCassidy352]

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NO CARRIER not even verizone would what a device like the iPhone 4 with video teleconferencing on it sucking up all the bandwidth!

Thanks GOD that they will not allow it!

That would be STUPID!

Gotta agree. The cell networks do not have the extra bandwidth just laying around unused. I'd much rather everyone have useable 3g for the services we already have than see video chat over 3g.