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Video chat will be the "one more thing"

While AT&T is crap, I'm not surprised video calling is wi-fi only. It's easy to allow video calling on a network with certain phones since the relative number of people using the feature is low, but with the iPhone, video chats will increase who knows how many times over.
 
Im sure on a jailbroken 4g we'll see msn type apps that can use the 4g front camera to use as a webcam.
 
yelnref said:
iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 only is crap.

hope they open it up to skype...
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According to the keynote, it is based on SIP (wow, Apple is actually using a well established open standard for once!). Skype seems to dislike SIP (only recently do they support it, for businesses only, and no video support)

Unless, of course, you mean allowing Skype to use the front facing camera.
 
I think the only way video calls becomes anything other than a novelty is if you open it up for anyone with a front facing camera to use. cellphone, laptop, whatever. iChat would be awesome if it was multi platform. limiting it to just iPhone users is lame, imo.

the wifi only is understandable, what with data restrictions, etc. but intentionally crippling the function by limiting its base is kinda disappointing.

imagine if you could only place phone calls to other iPhone users... ?
 
yelnref said:
I think the only way video calls becomes anything other than a novelty is if you open it up for anyone with a front facing camera to use. cellphone, laptop, whatever. iChat would be awesome if it was multi platform. limiting it to just iPhone users is lame, imo.

the wifi only is understandable, what with data restrictions, etc. but intentionally crippling the function by limiting its base is kinda disappointing.

imagine if you could only place phone calls to other iPhone users... ?
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So do we know for sure that it's only iPhone 4 to iPhone 4, or is there a chance that applications like Beejive can start supporting video chats?
 
He said they would be shipping a lot of Facetime Devices this year. I wonder if iChat may get renamed or something like that to allow it to work with all Mac OS X devices with webcams built in?
 
buzzbee said:
I wonder if iChat may get renamed or something like that to allow it to work with all Mac OS X devices with webcams built in?
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That'd be the first step. But there are an awful lot of Windows users out there, too...
 
I don't understand why they made it proprietry. Video calling has been part of the 3G standard since the start and is basically just a phone call - doesn't come out of your data plan. Plus you can call anyone.

Have I missed something here?
 
The US network must really be a mess.

I could video chat 8 years ago in Europe over 3G

But they should have called it "ChatRoulette" instead of FaceTime.
 
It is not proprietary it is using an open standard that they are releasing to anyone who wants to use it.

So any other device maker or software maker that wants to use face time can do so, and it will work with the iPhone 4 version.
 
marksman said:
It is not proprietary it is using an open standard that they are releasing to anyone who wants to use it.

So any other device maker or software maker that wants to use face time can do so, and it will work with the iPhone 4 version.
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Well, all I want to be able to do is video chat with my family who are mostly using MacBooks. :)
 
SomeSwede said:
As if video calls would be something special. Mobile phones with video has been around since ca 2002.
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and nobody uses it. exactly why i'm disappointed right now. i thought if anyone could get it right, it would be apple. but if it is only iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 then it's not much more than BBM with video.

but it's open. so maybe it's down to developers to implement and make cross-platform or device?
 
sorchard said:
According to the keynote, it is based on SIP (wow, Apple is actually using a well established open standard for once!). Skype seems to dislike SIP (only recently do they support it, for businesses only, and no video support)

Unless, of course, you mean allowing Skype to use the front facing camera.
Click to expand...

Well that's something but it seems Apple haven't seen fit to extend SIP support to voice calling so no VoIP. This seems to be instead of the standard 3G video call support we've have in GSM phones since the first Nokia 6xxx series phones in 2003-4(?). That's not a bad thing since that standard is old and sucky but again Apple say it's built on standards but the protocol is theirs.

Also, I hope we see an iChat for Mac update that supports the iOS SIP video protocol, otherwise the number of people you can video/audio chat with will be very small.
 
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