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Skype Video Calling Coming to iPhone?

CFreymarc said:
Agree. And "late" is only valid when someone takes a loss from it not arriving on time. Skype had a lot of maneuvering to do other than getting the code working.

Apple Facetime is published as an open standard and it's connection to WiFi has held it back via AT&T edict that video data would overload their network. I'm sure Skype has been doing a lot of infrastructure work to minimize network impact. This is not Angry Birds.

Time for Rule 34 on mobile video conferencing!
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Are you sure it is open? Afaik it is based on open standards but not an open standard. Can you point me to a non Apple implementation or to any standards docs?
 
nagromme said:
Sounds good. I just hope Skype starts using Push properly so that you can be “available” on Skype without the app sucking battery in the background. (If Skype really does that the way it seems to, I don’t know how Apple even allows it.)

I like the idea of enabling one-way video calls to people who don’t have a camera. Sometimes you just want to show someone something, and 2-way doesn’t really matter.



Bigger news: when something replaces 3G (and I don’t mean early marketing-hype 4G) that widely and consistently offers sufficient bandwidth and quality to make video calls work well! It will happen.
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We've had one way for years with Knocking Vid. Decent quality, but as you said, not consistent enough on 3G.

Fring also on and off has allowed video calling through skype on wifi and 3G for a while now. I barely use it because you never know whether or not they're going to allow it to be up or if their servers have crashed again.
 
MacRumors said:
the Skype iPhone application, curiously notes that users of a number of iPhone, iPad models can use video calling despite the fact that not all of these devices are camera-enabled.
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That's right, the iPad user may not have a camera but he can "SEE" an iPhone/iPod user who does. Eva thinka that one Charlie ?
 
davidbrummy said:
An iPad with a front facing camera with a Skype App may make me think about buying an iPad. I could also see people getting one for parents who currently do Skype to Skype with their grandkids.
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You're the first person to give that as a good reason to buy the next iPad
 
lilo777 said:
Why would they do that? FaceTime working only on iDevices and Skype working on all devices, why would anyone need FaceTime?
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I'm sorry but when my video chat has Togo through proprietary servers, no thank you. I like things open like FaceTime in regards to p2p connection to chat.
 
soapsuds said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Unless I missed FaceTime for Mac/Win coming out, will this be the first iPhone-to-PC video chat?
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Yahoo Messenger supports PC-to-iPhone.

And to those claiming this guy missed FaceTime for Windows - is there such a thing yet?
 
Wow. This is something I have been waiting for for a long time. The only problem with FaceTime is that you can only do it over WiFi, and that you can only do it to iPhones. This could change both of them
alien-smiley-134.gif
 
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MisterK said:
The benefit of FaceTime is that it works off your email address and it's always on. I don't need to launch an app or sign in. I'm available the same way my phone is available. Skype is cross platform and works over 3G. Both have a ways to go before we can just write off the idea of video calling.
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The advantage Facetime has is that it's built in to the OS and there's a Facetime daemon running all the time waiting for the incoming call. Skype can't do that unless Apple says so and allows them to run a daemon at startup.

IMHO Apple should take a look at how Nokia integrated 3rd party services in the Maemo platform. On an N900 you just add a service as a plugin extension. For example, on my N900, Skype (inc video calls despite what this article claims) isn't a separate application, it's a service integrated into my contacts and dialler. My SIPgate VoIP service is integrated also and so is Twitter. It's by far the best integrated experience I've come across on any phone. Until Apple do that, we're stuck with cheesy 3rd party apps.

Here's how it could be on the iPhone if Apple wasn't so controlling...

http://www.skype.com/intl/en/get-skype/on-your-mobile/builtin/nokia-n900/
 
unlinked said:
Are you sure it is open? Afaik it is based on open standards but not an open standard. Can you point me to a non Apple implementation or to any standards docs?
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I recall a mention of releasing implementation specs or to a standards body in the original FT presentation, but it seems that's been quietly dropped.

cameronjpu said:
You're the first person to give that as a good reason to buy the next iPad
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I don't know if a lot of people would buy an iPad for just one feature upgrade, but it is probably one of those features that add to the reasons to buy it. Video calling has been very slow on the uptake in general. I lent a notebook computer to someone while he's away for cancer treatment. He says it's been very beneficial to keep in touch with his wife and son. Before that, I hadn't personally known anyone that uses video calls to any significant degree.
 
AzzyZoz said:
Wow. This is something I have been waiting for for a long time. The only problem with FaceTime is that you can only do it over WiFi, and that you can only do it to iPhones. This could change both of them
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facetime_title20101020.png

Now you can make video calls to iPhone 4, the new iPod touch, or another Mac. Right from your Mac.
 
why does it seem like they always wait until the last bitter moments before they finally update with something as obvious as this... does the consumers voice really take this long to reach apple??? lol
 
drewyboy said:
I'm sorry but when my video chat has Togo through proprietary servers, no thank you. I like things open like FaceTime in regards to p2p connection to chat.
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Skype only goes to their servers to authenticate the user and find the other computer's address. The actual call is directly peer to peer.

Facetime does pretty much the same thing, talking to Apple servers first.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

I have a gut feelin they going to charge for this, if they were going to try to get us to pay for voice over 3G and want to get us for 3 way video calling they will deffietly charge for this
 
-Skype and Verizon partnered to offer chat via 3G exclusively to Verizon phones, at least on the Android platform. There are no details as to how long this exclusive relationship will last.

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/on-your-mobile/skype-mobile

-The logo on Skype's own website shows Verizon next to Skype, followed by iPhone information.

-There is an API in version 4.0 to allow programs to determine what carrier the iPhone is on.

http://developer.apple.com/library/.../Reference/CTCarrier/Reference/Reference.html

-Skype could be allowing video calls, or video calls over 3G on future Verizon iPhones only. The logo is there for the future support document to illustrate the fact that the feature is for Verizon only.
 
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