The two key features of Apple FaceTime
Those of us who have been in the mobile industry for a (too) long time remember the advent of video calling some five years ago. What a failed launch that was.
But suddenly I am excited again now that Apple is re-launching videocalling. Maybe that is just because I like technologies that seem like they are from the future and want to be excited by videocalling. Or maybe I am just a big Apple fanboy.
Source: Apple PR. The man in the picture is not related to the text. But he looks like a really nice guy.
But to be fair, videocalling á la Telia and Tre in 2005 had some key differences to the videocalling that Apple is launching.
The first difference is that Apple requires you to be connected over Wi-Fi, 3G is not supported. This might seem like a problem at first but in reality I think it is a fair limitation. There really is no use-case for videocalling someone that is out and about (except special cases like people using sign-language). I use video with Skype alot when I am out travelling. Sitting in a hotel room and using video adds something to the conversation instead of being a distraction. And judging from the Apple promotional videos, this seems to be the use-case they are targeting.
The second important feature of FaceTime is that you can switch to video during a normal call. That also makes sense. I remember trying to do videocalls five years ago, a common use case was that you were talking to someone and they wanted to show you something and suddenly you wanted to have video. But then you had to hang up and make a videocall which cost five times as much as a normal call. Which you were to lazy to do.
The only thing that worries me is that mobile operator may be forced make changes in their network to support the feature, at least it sounds like that in this post. That would delay any launch outside of the US significantly.
So, what do you think, do you see yourself using FaceTime?