Hi, everyone. Ahead of Apple's WWDC keynote later today, it's interesting to think about what form Apple's new iPhone video calling features might take and what the implications will be for Apple and the telecommunications industry as a whole.
First, here's my best guess as to what Apple would like to do:
1. The new iPhone (I'll call it the "iPhone HD" for the rest of this post) will be able to video conference with other iPhone HDs using its front-facing camera.
2. The video-chat functions will be available to other applications via Apple's APIs and Apple will tightly integrate video chat with the phone application. When an iPhone HD calls another iPhone HD, the caller will be able to "call" or "call with video." The call recipient will be able to "answer" or "answer with video."
3. This is a big one: iPhone 3GS users running OS 4.0 will be able to receive video calls from iPhone HDs. This means that if you have an iPhone HD and your friends have 3GSes, you'll be able to transmit live video calls to your friends even if they don't have iPhone HDs (yet).
4. The call sessions will use 3G/Edge to transmit compressed video streams, but will try to use WiFi when available to improve video quality and keep network usage down.
5. Depending upon how seamlessly this is all integrated (e.g., WiFi/3G network hopping during a live call), Apple may completely revamp the phone interface and integrate email, phone calls, video chat, and other communication functions into a single iChat application/interface.
Here's why Apple would like to do this:
a. It strengthens all of their Apple/iPhone branding if they're publicly seen as the company that "invented video calling." If they can pull all this off with enough polish, the general public will identify Apple and the iPhone with video calling in the same way they identify Apple and the iPod with mp3 playback.
b. This will attract new customers to the iPhone. The "me too" impulse of wanting to be able to video chat with iPhone HD-carrying friends will win new converts and push existing iPhone users to upgrade.
c. The 3GS video call reception described in #3 above will leverage the existing installed 3GS customer base to comfort and encourage iPhone HD customers. Other smart phone manufacturers don't have the same level of integration that Apple and AT&T have, so pushing out video calling with a new device is comparatively difficult for other companies. If none of your friends are capable of making video calls, why bother upgrading to a device that can? Early iPhone HD adopters, on the other hand, will at least be able to asymmetrically video call 3GS-carrying friends. Finally, the ease of use described above would be comparatively harder to achieve with other devices/networks since the devices on each side of the call would need to recognize the video call capabilities of each other through the network. AT&T and Apple already have push notifications, visual voicemail, and other proprietary features working and video calling is an area where they could pull way ahead of their competitors.
d. The level of integration alluded to in #5 above is something that would threaten Google and other social networking/communications companies and draw new users to Apple. If it's possible to use one application on one device to IM, email, video call, video chat, and text without thinking about WiFi vs. 3G, IM vs. texting, etc. users might start using MobileMe (especially if it becomes free for basic services) or other Apple-branded technologies vs. Gmail, etc.
The three major factors that success of these features will hinge on are:
i. How polished Apple's software implementation of these features is (e.g., is the interface intuitive, do they have fast video compression/decompression that won't kill battery life, etc.).
ii. How capable AT&T's already beleaguered 3G network is of handling lots of new video chat data and the requisite handshaking to facilitate video calling.
iii. How well AT&T and Apple continue to get along. Apple may be interested in getting the iPhone onto Verizon's network, but getting something like push notification and video calling to work across networks would require cooperation between multiple companies with various interests.
It is this last point, and the larger implications that video calling has for telecommunications, that are potentially troubling. AT&T's recent data plan and contract changes, in addition to their network problems and the tethering debacle, are surely frustrating to Apple, and in the future AT&T may implement aggressive policy changes that Apple doesn't approve of at all. These sorts of issues incentivize Apple to get the iPhone on multiple carriers; the carriers (in this case, AT&T exclusively in the US) may block other prospective carriers from implementing video calling, etc.
As Steve takes to the stage, we'll see what he actually has in store for us. In the long-term, this could play out as the advent of a new era of video calling where we are all more connected and communicative than ever before.
On the other hand, this could be the beginning of a new hell of live video pornography, video call car crashes, data congested networks and carrier politics that isolate users from colleagues on competing networks.
Let's hope for the best.
First, here's my best guess as to what Apple would like to do:
1. The new iPhone (I'll call it the "iPhone HD" for the rest of this post) will be able to video conference with other iPhone HDs using its front-facing camera.
2. The video-chat functions will be available to other applications via Apple's APIs and Apple will tightly integrate video chat with the phone application. When an iPhone HD calls another iPhone HD, the caller will be able to "call" or "call with video." The call recipient will be able to "answer" or "answer with video."
3. This is a big one: iPhone 3GS users running OS 4.0 will be able to receive video calls from iPhone HDs. This means that if you have an iPhone HD and your friends have 3GSes, you'll be able to transmit live video calls to your friends even if they don't have iPhone HDs (yet).
4. The call sessions will use 3G/Edge to transmit compressed video streams, but will try to use WiFi when available to improve video quality and keep network usage down.
5. Depending upon how seamlessly this is all integrated (e.g., WiFi/3G network hopping during a live call), Apple may completely revamp the phone interface and integrate email, phone calls, video chat, and other communication functions into a single iChat application/interface.
Here's why Apple would like to do this:
a. It strengthens all of their Apple/iPhone branding if they're publicly seen as the company that "invented video calling." If they can pull all this off with enough polish, the general public will identify Apple and the iPhone with video calling in the same way they identify Apple and the iPod with mp3 playback.
b. This will attract new customers to the iPhone. The "me too" impulse of wanting to be able to video chat with iPhone HD-carrying friends will win new converts and push existing iPhone users to upgrade.
c. The 3GS video call reception described in #3 above will leverage the existing installed 3GS customer base to comfort and encourage iPhone HD customers. Other smart phone manufacturers don't have the same level of integration that Apple and AT&T have, so pushing out video calling with a new device is comparatively difficult for other companies. If none of your friends are capable of making video calls, why bother upgrading to a device that can? Early iPhone HD adopters, on the other hand, will at least be able to asymmetrically video call 3GS-carrying friends. Finally, the ease of use described above would be comparatively harder to achieve with other devices/networks since the devices on each side of the call would need to recognize the video call capabilities of each other through the network. AT&T and Apple already have push notifications, visual voicemail, and other proprietary features working and video calling is an area where they could pull way ahead of their competitors.
d. The level of integration alluded to in #5 above is something that would threaten Google and other social networking/communications companies and draw new users to Apple. If it's possible to use one application on one device to IM, email, video call, video chat, and text without thinking about WiFi vs. 3G, IM vs. texting, etc. users might start using MobileMe (especially if it becomes free for basic services) or other Apple-branded technologies vs. Gmail, etc.
The three major factors that success of these features will hinge on are:
i. How polished Apple's software implementation of these features is (e.g., is the interface intuitive, do they have fast video compression/decompression that won't kill battery life, etc.).
ii. How capable AT&T's already beleaguered 3G network is of handling lots of new video chat data and the requisite handshaking to facilitate video calling.
iii. How well AT&T and Apple continue to get along. Apple may be interested in getting the iPhone onto Verizon's network, but getting something like push notification and video calling to work across networks would require cooperation between multiple companies with various interests.
It is this last point, and the larger implications that video calling has for telecommunications, that are potentially troubling. AT&T's recent data plan and contract changes, in addition to their network problems and the tethering debacle, are surely frustrating to Apple, and in the future AT&T may implement aggressive policy changes that Apple doesn't approve of at all. These sorts of issues incentivize Apple to get the iPhone on multiple carriers; the carriers (in this case, AT&T exclusively in the US) may block other prospective carriers from implementing video calling, etc.
As Steve takes to the stage, we'll see what he actually has in store for us. In the long-term, this could play out as the advent of a new era of video calling where we are all more connected and communicative than ever before.
On the other hand, this could be the beginning of a new hell of live video pornography, video call car crashes, data congested networks and carrier politics that isolate users from colleagues on competing networks.
Let's hope for the best.