Catch Up | Hacker News Reader

Catch Up

daringfireball.net

11 pointsZeroGravitas16 comments

Video calling has been available in Japan for about a decade - but no one really uses it. In part, it is because of the price.

But I believe fundamentally most people don't want to make video calls. I use skype all the time, which has a video feature, but rarely use it. To me, video calling feels unnatural.

Furthermore, well it is practical in most situations to make a normal call, video calling only works in certain situations. For example, it won't work while you are walking, or otherwise occupied. As such, you have to make a conscious decision to this time use video calling, and not voice.

I don't think video calling will go much beyond a novelty feature.

I make video calls every day with iChat.

I'd say one thing helping you is that you don't need to hold the camera.

I won't be surprised if Apple makes this a success but calling it epic is nothing but laughable to all of us who could do it since before the year 2000...

Same experience in the UK.

3G video calling was so unpopular that even when some of the carriers started including video call minutes as regular minutes (making video calling essentially free, anywhere) no one used it.

Apple has some advantages that might give it a chance though:

- The user experience is better. Convert to video mid call is nice, and it tells you when it's available.

- No one in the US has seen it on a large scale yet, so it'll have a novelty factor that will help get people to try it out.

- The video quality is better, because it was designed for newer systems and newer codecs.

But counting against them is the relatively low penetration of FaceTime capable devices. Almost everyone in the UK has an inter-operable video call capable phone.

iPhone 4 hasn't shipped yet. Video chat only works with other iPhone 4s over wifi.

EVO has shipped but Fring isn't working with the camera yet.

Are any other apps coming for either? Where is Skype?

Nobody is playing catch up because nobody has a compelling solution yet. Both the quoted article and Gruber are wrong.

I thought it was interesting that HTC was being chided for providing hardware features for 3rd party software to use, whereas with Apple you'll not get the hardware until Apple has found a way to use it. Particularly in the case of video-calling where network effects matter. Do we really want to see an HTC-only video chat network?

The point is that unless you have a good synthesis of hard- & software, what's the point?

As to network effects, what I like is that apple is making FaceTime an open standard, and Skype is already keen. http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20007298-233.html

Is that what he's saying? It sounds like something he would say but in this instance it's more like he's claiming a first for Apple because he's unaware that the Evo shipped with video chat software.

My bigger point was that if you are a hardware platform provider working with 3rd parties then you provide the hardware and then the 3rd parties provide the software. Many, perhaps most, of the compelling iPhone experiences work this way too. Apple provide the accelerometers, games companies provide the games that use them etc. It seemed odd to limit either Android or the iPhone to 1st party software/hardware combinations.

And regarding, Skype, you might want to read that again. Even if the anonymous source actually exists and works at Skype, the text sounds like a veiled insult and an ad for their own existing and very successful video calling network:

We would welcome the opportunity to work with Apple to bring mobile video calling not only to our many millions of Skype users on iPhone around the world, but also to the countless more making video calls on desktops, TVs and other connected devices

I'm guessing they might also be hinting that they don't want their duplicate functionality blocked by Apple. Facetime only gets linked to Skype in the headline of the original pocketlint blog, the rest all seems to be about Skype wanting to access the new hardware in iPhone 4. The CNET blog seems to garble this message into Skype wanting to use Facetime.

If I recall correctly, Qik for Android was bundled with the HTC Evo 4G, and supports video calls out of the box. I recall reading about Qik momentarily shutting down due to the extreme number of video calls on day one. I think John is extremely misinformed on this one. The software stack supports video calling just fine.

Funny he didn't respond to the multitasking thing. I would have liked to have his opinion about that.

He is correct: my E71 has a front facing camera. Never used it to make a video call or otherwise.

Same with my N95. Excluding the touchscreen, it's like Apple is finally catching up to 2007 :). Oh wait, my N95 has some horrible Flash implementation so they're not done yet!

In all seriousness though, the completeness of the feature set was /never/ what made the iPhone popular. In the Apple vs Android debate, it's worth remembering that marketing was the key to its success.

weren't old HTC and/or compaq devices with windows ce/mobile able to do video calls already?

what about this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gCTdRjBUPg from 2007?

3 had a video phone in Australia. Never really took off. People don't want video calling for a number of reasons.

I think they had it when they were still called orange to, been a lot time, probably 6 years. It wasn't a great frame rate or anything but usable, I don't think many people will use it more now just because the quality has improved a lot. For most use cases its probably easier just to take a video, unless your directly talking to someone and then the quality isn't to big a deal.

the gruber sounds like a teacher showing you what is _really_ good. i hope he gets paid for this.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com