The minimum price on the app store is .99 - Facetime comes pre installed on newer versions of osx.
This is most likely an accounting reason why they need to charge for this feature for older users.
This is most likely an accounting reason why they need to charge for this feature for older users.
(This used to be the case with QuickTime: the basic stuff was free, but if you wanted additional codecs you had to upgrade to QuickTime Pro, for real money -- but it wasn't all going into Apple's pocket: it was simply that if they'd bundled all the codecs with the basic application they'd have been liable for extra royalties.)
I believe Apple uses different income recognition rules for iOS devices than they do for OS X devices, and that may account for the difference here.