FaceTime and Why Apple’s Massive Integration Advantage is Just Beginning | Hacker News Reader

FaceTime and Why Apple’s Massive Integration Advantage is Just Beginning

techcrunch.com

19 pointsandrewpbrett18 comments

sorry, but mobile 4G is not ready for primetime, and I firmly believe Apple won’t even include it on next year’s iPhone 5

I'll partly agree with the first part of that statement, but does that mean that HTC/Sprint should have left it out of the EVO? Certainly not. Sprint invested a great deal in its WiMax infrastructure, and releasing a phone that takes advantage of it now brings in much-needed revenue (the added $10/mo + $29 optional hotspot fees), and it increases public awareness of 4G. The HTC EVO is a walking PR machine/proof of concept for 4G, and it just put Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile into catch-up mode. I think it was a brilliant move on Sprint's part, and they'll enjoy the benefits for at least the next year or so.

The reason Apple won't include 4G on next year's iPhone is that for better or worse, they are still stuck with AT&T (exclusivity contract expiration aside, there's no GSM alternative, and CDMA is out). AT&T can't even get 3G to run on all cylinders without breaking the network and angering customers. To roll out 4G and charge customers more for it (following Sprint's lead), they would have to offer users a much better experience. The other reason Apple will leave it out is that they need to offer users a compelling reason to get the iPhone 6.

FaceTime makes video-calling on the Android-based Sprint HTC EVO look silly, because the EVO awkwardly requires users to sign up and download a third-party app, then launch it every time they want to talk. Normal people simply won’t do this.

I whole-heartedly disagree with this. Facetime forces users to only call other iPhone 4 users, and only over Wi-Fi. The HTC EVO might be less convenient in that you have to use Fring or Qik, but these apps are available on multiple platforms (Windows Mobile, Nokia, etc), widening the group of people you can reach. Video chat also works over 3G/4G, which for me trumps iPhone's "instant-on" convenience. Perfect use case was our company's 4th of July BBQ...I was able to use my EVO at the park to video chat, while my coworkers with the iPhone 4 missed out because there was no WiFi (unless they were to connect to my EVO's hotspot).

FaceTime is an open protocol: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apples_biggest_news_vid...

and

http://blog.imtc.org/index.php/2010/06/09/the-technology-beh...

FaceTime is an open protocol

Where's the spec?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3115535/cant-find-ios-fac...

joubert linked to an article outlining the specs that make up FaceTime. The same article is also linked in an answer on the SO page you linked to yourself. The pieces used in FaceTime are all listed there. I'm sure Apple will release some docs on how to tie them all together for FaceTime compat, but that will take time. Be patient. Till then here are links to the various specs:

h.264: http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.264-200305-S

aac: http://www.arm.com/files/pdf/PRD10-GENC-001288-4-0.pdf

sip: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3261

turn: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5766

rtp: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3550

srtp: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3711

FaceTime is an open protocol

It may be open, but that doesn't guarantee adoption...to date, only the iPhone 4 makes use of it, whereas Fring and Qik already operate on multiple platforms. If Facetime does manage to catch on and other manufacturers adopt it, then the iPhone loses that competitive advantage, since there will be plenty of Android, Symbian, and Windows phones that use it. The other OSes have the advantage of being able to use other standards as well (because Apple will not allow an app that competes with Facetime in its app store).

In the next, say, 3 months, will the number of Fring or Qik users be even close to the number of iPhone 4 users?

Fring allows video calls with skype who's users surely will outnumber those of the iphone.

Skype has around 50 million active users. 5-10 million iPhones sell per quarter. Shouldn't take long to catch up.

Where are you getting that number for Skype from? In October, 2009, they had 521 million registered users, and 40 million registered users in the preceeding 3 months: http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/21/skype-hits-521-million-user... That would indicate to me they likely have more than 50 million active users.

Additionally, when someone buys an iPhone, they are not going to use that phone for the rest of their life. People who already have iPhones will buy new models. Others will migrate from iPhone to other phones. So just based on the number of phones sold, you can't tell when it will "catch up".

Furthermore, as Skype runs on the iPhone (over 3G as well now), iPhone users can also be Skype users.

I got it based on the number of active users, not registered users. Everyone who has registered for Skype ever counts as a registered user. I got my numbers here:

http://aaytch.com/borderless

You're right that you can't tell when the iPhone will catch up purely based on those numbers. I'd say it's a smart bet, though, that it won't be long. We know that Apple has already sold a few million iPhone 4s, and I'll bet that it sells somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 million before the next iPhone comes out.

You're also right that you can Skype on the iPhone. We don't yet know how good Skype video chat will be on the iPhone, how it will compare to FaceTime, or how many people will use it instead of FaceTime. We also don't know who else (if anyone) will use the FaceTime protocol.

However, we do know that every iPhone 4 comes with FaceTime enabled, that it is trivial to use, and that it is integrated in the phone and contacts at the system level. All of this softens the significance of Skype's apparent head start.

YUP the same way more people use BBM for IM than Google Chat. (Oh they dont!!) And there are more Black berries than IPhones

" If Facetime does manage to catch on and other manufacturers adopt it, then the iPhone loses that competitive advantage"

On the other hand, it makes FaceTime more useful, because you'll be able to call more people with your iPhone. Most likely the "advantage" will come down to who has the best implementation, and who has clunky implementations.

Food for thought: what do you think would happen if Apple opened up the app store to all devices (assuming there were a way to run these apps on Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, etc). Don't you think a significant number would jump ship to other phones (e.g. ones with replaceable batteries, slide out keyboards, removable memory cards)? It would be more beneficial to the other companies than to Apple in the sense that Android users, for example, would be able to choose from the Android Marketplace and the Apple app store.

But there's one big difference: you can never assume every EVO has Qik or Fring. And you needed separate account for it. FaceTime with its full integration with the hardware requires none of that. Being able to "oh, you have iPhone 4? Let's FaceTime." is big. (Even though the answer is "I'm not on WiFi.")

you can never assume every EVO has Qik or Fring

My EVO came with Qik installed, but I did have to install Fring. I'd be willing to bet that in the near future, Android will have a standard video chat app built in, and likely running on top of gTalk

that would be the jingle protocol - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingle_(protocol)

Using video on the mobile seems awkward to me. I'll be interested in seeing some stats about how much this feature is actually used.

I feel FaceTime is a step back. ITs like saying BBM (Black berry messenger) is awesome because you dont need to sign in, yet anyone would agree that GTalk or any decent Chat client trumps BBM. The whole purpose of creating an account is to allow portability. Tieing Facetime with Phone number and restricting it only on WiFi is a stupid.

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