FaceTime and the iPod Touch | Hacker News Reader

FaceTime and the iPod Touch

daringfireball.net

61 pointsmattyb36 comments

Why is every DF post ending up here on HN? For comments perhaps?

Google / Google Voice / Gizmo5 or any SIP provider offers data calls. I've been messing around with this on my iPad and it's very close to being viable. There's no question it is on Android.

I hope Apple keeps moving in this direction but I doubt they'll be the first to route around the carriers. Right now all signs point to Apple being happily engaged to AT&T.

Internationally Apple works with dozens of carriers, frequently more than one in a territory. This is still the company whose CEO referred to carriers as "orifices" not so long ago. They're going to keep putting a brave face on the AT&T relationship right up until the morning when they announce an alternative.

Yeah I bet you're right.

We all just have to suck it up now with AT&T but nobody is happy with the status quo.

I think reliable blanket wireless coverage (which is what the cell phone providers are supposedly offering) is harder to realize than people think.

What are the overheads for yourself to provide a quality wi-fi enabled home. Your workplace, likewise, expends the effort to be a device hub. On-the-go data everywhere? It's likely more difficult than you think.

The cell-tower network was funded by everyone owning a mobile phone to exchange calls... data hungry devices are still in the minority. Apple could have rolled their own "A4" 3G network if feasible. It's in their DNA to control all the pipes. The fact that they haven't tells me that the pipes are prohibitively expensive.

Sure but the alternative isn't your phone only works once you've bought a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

The only viable alternative to ATT currently would be another carrier. IE, the logic of the original post was rather strained.

Right now all signs point to Apple being happily engaged to AT&T.

Sure, but they were also happily engaged to the PowerPC chip while they had the Intel-compatible OS X waiting in the wings. It would behoove Apple to have a strategy for routing around the carriers at such time that a relationship with said carriers is no longer advantageous to them.

Furthermore, couldn't you replace "FaceTime" with "Skype" and the article would still make sense?

"[Skype], I think, is a first step in the direction of a mobile “phone” with no mobile carrier. If and when [Skype] is supported over 3G in addition to Wi-Fi, it’ll be data, not voice — megabytes, not minutes."

Skype already has a device that works on 3G: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Skypephone_Series

And today, Skype has 529 million accounts, whereas FaceTime has 600,000 (the number of pre-ordered iPhone 4s).

It's not at all clear to me how Apple expects FaceTime to encroach on Skype's market share.

Stand-alone wifi phones have existed for a while too.

It's just the cellular networks are much better and don't have to fear wifi replacing them.

How many people own said Skype 3G device? How many people own cell phones? The point is, if you want to be making calls over the wireless network when you're out and about, chances are you won't be using a device capable of making unmetered Skype calls over 3G (at least not for very long, or with much success). You'll be using the carrier's sanctioned and costly services. You can make calls over 3G today with Skype on the iPhone, and it's free for now, but they say it'll only be free until the end of this year, and then they'll be charging for it.

http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/05/iphone_calling_over_3g.htm...

The carriers are flexing their leverage over Apple/FaceTime and Skype to fight any free VoIP services on their networks. Look for a paid FaceTime-over-cell-data-network plan to emerge in short order, with revenues going straight to the carrier, along with Skype's.

From what I can tell there's no revenue model around FaceTime so I doubt Apple cares about competing with Skype. Probably just didn't want to rely on a third party to provide the essential software that makes an important hardware feature work.

they start late, yes. but they have sold 100 million iOS devices. so in a year or so most of those could have facetime. plus 70+ million new ones with facetime preinstalled.

I don't know about this Skype phone, but I make Skype calls (including video) on my Nokia N900. Have been doing this for some time.

If you replaced Facetime with Skype and published it what five(?) years ago, then yes it would make sense.

How will users get around needing a carrier? EVen if they have ipod touch that connects to 4g you still have to pay access for the 4g service.

My little brother did not have a cellphone for most of his just-completed Freshman year of college.

He had an iPod Touch with Skype and omnipresent WiFi. He called me (on my cellphone no-less!) while walking to class.

The iPod Touch already does this, even without FaceTime.

If this prediction holds, Apple could add an awful lot of value to MobileMe by providing a sort of answering machine service to subscribers.

I'm close to wireless for most of the day, but when I'm not it would be nice to have FaceTime callers that couldn't reach me leave a video message that got delivered via email.

Not that it's a bad idea, it's not, but if you're doing it by email anyway, then you can just hang up, fire up the camera app, record your 'message', and email/MMS it to the recipient. In fact, you can do that today, without iOS 4, or even an iPhone 4 (with some dexterity).

That's a lot more work, though, than simply leaving a message.

An "Email this person a video message" button on the call screen doesn't seem too tough though.

Back around the turn of the century when the UK was experiencing a brief bout of videophone mania, my friend who got free video phone minutes would leave me video calls if he ran out both voice and text credit on his pay-as-you-go phone. It was all a bit Max Headroom.

There's a potential downside to this for Apple though: if they start allowing users to bypass carrier services, then the monthly cost of the service will start to go down as users use fewer features, but that also means Apple will get less of a subsidy from the carriers. Most people don't want to spend $700 on a mobile phone, so I'm sure they're not going to go out of their way to decrease carrier significance to any large extent.

> Most people don't want to spend $700 on a mobile phone

Until quite recently, Apple hasn't been in the "most people want" business. Their marketshare has been going up, but I'm not convinced that they've totally changed direction from high-end.

The carrier locking has always struck me as a bit of a detour. If you look at Jobs statements circa the original iPhone he's clearly aiming at crushing the subsidized market. They've experienced a setback since then, but I don't think they're defeated.

The real story here is that all this time, we thought the renegotiations surrounding VOIP were about getting Skype et al in the app store. In reality, they probably really slipped terms in to allow Apple to do VOIP calling (even if it's only over WiFi, I doubt they were allowed to under the old noncompete clause...)

Suddenly, AT&T's rapid reversal on iPad pricing makes sense. AT&T must have gotten wind of FaceTime.

The money comes from the end-user either way. So right now the difference is between paying $250 for an iPod Touch vs. $99 or more for an iPhone plus a contract of some kind that embeds the subsidy in the monthly fees.

If Apple wants to offer iPod Touches for $25 or even free and recoup the cost through monthly fees, it can do so without the carriers by bundling them with MobileMe subscriptions or by offering Apple Credit Cards.

Apple really doesn't need the telcos to offer financing to its customers.

But surely, someday, there will be a non-phone-carrier wireless networking technology with far greater range than Wi-Fi.

This technology already exists. Here in Japan, emobile sells a "pocket wifi router" that has a 3G data connection built in. They advertise it in conjunction with an iPod touch.

WiMAX is another such technology.

I don't see why Apple are making the effort. It looks like they won't be making any money from FaceTime directly, so then it's just a nice feature to help sell more Apple kit. Why not save a lot of development and infrastructure cost by pre-installing a (custom) Skype?

(I realise that that doesn't make it exclusive to Apple, but I don't see Apple beating the network effects that Skype has working for them, either)

My guess is they're not including Skype for many of the same reasons they don't include Flash. They don't want to be in a position where they are depending on one single company to fix things so they can release new products.

That sounds about right... but doesn't that scare away lots of good ideas? Don't develop an idea that would be a great selling point for the iPhone, cause Apple will see that as a possible future dependency, stall your app from getting in the store and do it themselves in the next update. If Layar really gets moving, how long till Apple "does AR right" and then kicks them off for "duplicating built-in features"?

To make the end-run complete, Apple would have to convince carriers to treat text messages (IMs basically) as data instead of SMS.

Why? The equivalent of FaceTime for text messages exists today, and it's any IM app with push notifications. Meebo and Whatsapp come to mind.

IM requires separate logins to be exchanged, they exist on partitioned networks, etc. IM's handy and has its place, but it's not going to replace SMS.

You should try Whatsup. Based on contact list phone numbers - no login exchange required. Very SMS like in nature. The gf and I use it as a SMS replacement and it works well.

Same here. However, there's way more lag in these apps (both msgs arriving when not in the app as well as actually just starting the app) than the built in SMS app from Apple.

This answers my question, Why doesn't Apple or Google just buy a carrier? Because they intend to put them out of business.

How can they get rid of carriers altogether? They are still the only way to get widespread wireless data service. And as long as that doesn't change, they're gonna do all they can to cling to the old model.

How did Alexander Graham Bell wind up getting rid of the entrenched Western Union in his day? Things change all the time.

A perfect phone for home. We already ditched landlines. Mobile carriers are sucking our blood while their service keeps sucking.

I, for one, applaud apple's effort to bring video call to the masses.

I hope a future Apple TV display can do video calls too. Genius!

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