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NZ_Matt

It's only iphone 4 to iphone 4 so it's basically useless most of the time.

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Jobs: "we’re going to make FaceTime an open industry standard."

Should be interesting.

They have to. It will be dead otherwise, based on the current prerequisites (iOS4 to iOS4, only on wifi)

I seem to recall he said the "only on wifi" was a temporary thing - while "we work with cell carriers" (I noted the plural: carrierS).

Hello from outside America; we don't have AT&T.

Hello from inside America; you don't really want AT&T.

I have to wonder how long it will take to work out with AT&T. Skype and tethering took a year for AT&T to get around to.

That was easily the most interesting part of the keynote to me (Android user). I already assumed that video calling from Apple would push something similar forward in the rest of the phone community, but the fact that they're going to make it an open standard is phenomenal.

Of course, we'll see what they mean by "open standard" after the recent debacle with Safari's "HTML5 Demo", but I'd like to remain optimistic. Webkit was a nice gift, and hopefully this will be something similar.

like the MiniDisplayPort.

It's actually based on already existing open standards, see http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/06/apple-...

True, but being based on open standards doesn't necessarily mean that the end result won't have anything proprietary in it. Jobs saying they are going to make FaceTime an open standard seems to imply that they are adding something of their own to the mix.

There was a slide pointing out that it was based on existing technologies already.

What have all the other video-calling capable phones been using thus far? Is there no existing standard?

Worse that that, you have to be calling someone else with an iPhone, and you -both- have to be using wifi. Don't get me wrong, it is a step up from what they used to have available, but that is kind of a tall order for general consumption.

Still more convenient than chat on net-books/laptops. Calling on a phone is very convenient and if you can, add video.

Except it's not hands free, laptops have the camera in a pretty good position without any additional effort.

But to be in that situation, you've already committed to sitting.

So yes, it will be perfect when I'm standing up near my WiFi hotspot and want to video chat with someone I know who has the same brand new phone as I do and is also standing up near their WiFi hotspot.

I'm quite surprised that it's not at least compatible with the video calls in iChat. 3G will definitely happen, but they have a built-in base of millions of users on iChat that could have helped kick things off.

...or the cafe, or the coworking space, or at your friend's house. Since the call comes first, it's a fortuitous enhancement you sometimes add to an ordinary call. Your way, you are either already sitting and working, or you had to plan ahead. Big diffence.

I can see it being useful for family stuff, "mom's on a business trip but she's going to read you a bedtime story, OK?" sort of thing. The limitations are going to go away pretty quickly I'd bet. Well, except for doing video over 3G but that's only because AT&T doesn't seem to understand how much hatred they are earning.

The only reason they are ignorant to how much people hate AT&T is because AT&T has the iphone. The minute the iphone is available for tmobile, verizon, or sprint, AT&T will see how much people hate them.

For now. Looks like they want to push it as a video chat standard, so, it's gonna be on any Android phones with video camera capacities, front facing or not.

I'd say that iPhone users have many friends who are also iPhone users, anecdotally.

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