Skype already has video chat on the desktop. Which do you really think is more realistic: they rewrite their existing software to use the FaceTime standard or they release a mobile client for their existing system?
I think it is worth noting that at the WWDC 2010 Keynote, Steve Jobs listed the standards used by Facetime.
It was just a list of standard names, in a single slides, but it says a *lot* if you the names;
essentially, the listed standards cover the basic of the VoIP telephony and add the video standards in top of it; from that list it is safe to assume that Facetime, as such, add relatively little with respect to existing standards (probably some registry added on top of SIP, and a few more things here and there); this is a *good* thing, because:
1) Facetime is based on proven standards and technologies: large scale deployment can be very fast.
2) Opening up the Facetime specific protocols will be relatively cheap; there is less to document, explain and support that a complete Voice/Video on IP stack.
3) Adoptions will be easier:standards are known, competences are availables, interconnecting with existing, standard based services will be easier.
I think we will see some interesting evolution around the end of the year ....
I think it is worth noting that at the WWDC 2010 Keynote, Steve Jobs listed the standards used by Facetime.
It was just a list of standard names, in a single slides, but it says a *lot* if you the names;
essentially, the listed standards cover the basic of the VoIP telephony and add the video standards in top of it; from that list it is safe to assume that Facetime, as such, add relatively little with respect to existing standards (probably some registry added on top of SIP, and a few more things here and there); this is a *good* thing, because:
1) Facetime is based on proven standards and technologies: large scale deployment can be very fast.
2) Opening up the Facetime specific protocols will be relatively cheap; there is less to document, explain and support that a complete Voice/Video on IP stack.
3) Adoptions will be easier:standards are known, competences are availables, interconnecting with existing, standard based services will be easier.
I think we will see some interesting evolution around the end of the year ....
Bappo
I would expect desktop chat programs, like Adium, to adopt it very quickly. I think even a working Beta may come within a few days of the release.
Hard to believe that there's been no fix for the proximity sensor issue on the iPhone 4, almost two months after launch. This is the one true problem with the iPhone 4. Is anyone else as mad as I am?.
Hard to believe that there's been no fix for the proximity sensor issue on the iPhone 4, almost two months after launch. This is the one true problem with the iPhone 4. Is anyone else as mad as I am?.
Have you called Apple about this? My boss had the proximity problem, called and they said they would replace the phone.....and they did.
Yes. that's the type of post that people make when they've lost the argument.
You claimed that Apple hasn't made FaceTime an open standard. There are two possibilities:
1. You are making it up and telling lies to try to make yourself feel important.
or
2. You have evidence to back up your position - in which case you should be able to provide that evidence.
Now, either provide the evidence or admit that you were lying all along. There's no other alternative.
Well, if you'g going to be a giant dick about I guess you deserve to be called out.
You're asking for proof of a negative, which is a logical fallacy. You're wrong. Period.
The assertion is "Facetime is an open standard." Proof of that statement would lie in an example of a standards body having access to the code and its availability for developers to build on, sans licensing costs. That's what open standard means.
"Proving" the negative simply isn't possible, since there always exists the possibility that the code is available and we're just not aware of it, or the process is well under way and we're just shy of an announcement, or the like.
It's like being called on to prove you're not a murderer. It may be possible to prove that you are, but the negative requires every moment of your life thus far to be available for examination-- hence the fallacy.
I think it may be because you misread NassarAE's comment.
I'm pretty sure he's asking for VoIP calling without first initiating it as a video call, not for new protocols to do the exactly the same thing FaceTime's audio already does.
Regardless, I think we're all on the same page now.
It's an interesting question, though: Apple has a potential VoIP solution, but may choose to market it subsumed into the FaceTime brand.
I agree that that isn't necessarily a good idea. There are real psychological barriers to the adoption of video chat, and people who may be ready and eager to embrace an Apple branded VoIP service might not be particularly interested in having their heads displayed to the caller.
Yes, video could be disabled, but that still feels like a video call with the picture turned off, which still evokes those same psychological barriers. I think Apple could address this by segregating out the voice portion of the service and allowing it to have its own brand. No new standard or technology, just a little savvy market positioning.
I realize Apple wanted a splashy tech win for their platform, but I actually think they might have a better adoption rate if they sold this as VoIP with video being a toggle-able extra. My suspicion is that most people just don't like video chat (for a variety of reasons that maybe boil down to "I'm not really up for anyone looking at me right now"), at least at the moment.
FYI, Davd Foster Wallace has a hilarious bit about the rise and fall of videophones in his novel Infinite Jest. The relevant passage (I cribbed this from Kotke, it was the only online citation I could find):
Quote:
Good old traditional audio-only phone conversations allowed you to presume that the person on the other end was paying complete attention to you while also permitting you not to have to pay anything even close to complete attention to her. A traditional aural-only conversation [...] let you enter a kind of highway-hypnotic semi-attentive fugue: while conversing, you could look around the room, doodle, fine-groom, peel tiny bits of dead skin away from your cuticles, compose phone-pad haiku, stir things on the stove; you could even carry on a whole separate additional sign-language-and-exaggerated-facial-expression type of conversation with people right there in the room with you, all while seeming to be right there attending closely to the voice on the phone. And yet -- and this was the retrospectively marvelous part -- even as you were dividing your attention between the phone call and all sorts of other idle little fuguelike activities, you were somehow never haunted by the suspicion that the person on the other end's attention might be similarly divided.
Video telephony rendered the fantasy insupportable. Callers now found they had to compose the same sort of earnest, slightly overintense listener's expression they had to compose for in-person exchanges. Those caller who out of unconscious habit succumbed to fuguelike doodling or pants-crease-adjustment now came off looking extra rude, absentminded, or childishly self-absorbed. Callers who even more unconsciously blemish-scanned or nostril explored looked up to find horrified expressions on the video-faces at the other end. All of which resulted in videophonic stress.
And the videophonic stress was even worse if you were at all vain. I.e. if you worried at all about how you looked. As in to other people. Which all kidding aside who doesn't. Good old aural telephone calls could be fielded without makeup, toupee, surgical prostheses, etc. Even without clothes, if that sort of thing rattled your saber. But for the image-conscious, there was of course no answer-as-you-are informality about visual-video telephone calls, which consumers began to see were less like having the good old phone ring than having the doorbell ring and having to throw on clothes and attach prostheses and do hair-checks in the foyer mirror before answering the door.
Comments
Skype already has video chat on the desktop. Which do you really think is more realistic: they rewrite their existing software to use the FaceTime standard or they release a mobile client for their existing system?
I think it is worth noting that at the WWDC 2010 Keynote, Steve Jobs listed the standards used by Facetime.
It was just a list of standard names, in a single slides, but it says a *lot* if you the names;
essentially, the listed standards cover the basic of the VoIP telephony and add the video standards in top of it; from that list it is safe to assume that Facetime, as such, add relatively little with respect to existing standards (probably some registry added on top of SIP, and a few more things here and there); this is a *good* thing, because:
1) Facetime is based on proven standards and technologies: large scale deployment can be very fast.
2) Opening up the Facetime specific protocols will be relatively cheap; there is less to document, explain and support that a complete Voice/Video on IP stack.
3) Adoptions will be easier:standards are known, competences are availables, interconnecting with existing, standard based services will be easier.
I think we will see some interesting evolution around the end of the year ....
Bappo
I think it is worth noting that at the WWDC 2010 Keynote, Steve Jobs listed the standards used by Facetime.
It was just a list of standard names, in a single slides, but it says a *lot* if you the names;
essentially, the listed standards cover the basic of the VoIP telephony and add the video standards in top of it; from that list it is safe to assume that Facetime, as such, add relatively little with respect to existing standards (probably some registry added on top of SIP, and a few more things here and there); this is a *good* thing, because:
1) Facetime is based on proven standards and technologies: large scale deployment can be very fast.
2) Opening up the Facetime specific protocols will be relatively cheap; there is less to document, explain and support that a complete Voice/Video on IP stack.
3) Adoptions will be easier:standards are known, competences are availables, interconnecting with existing, standard based services will be easier.
I think we will see some interesting evolution around the end of the year ....
Bappo
I would expect desktop chat programs, like Adium, to adopt it very quickly. I think even a working Beta may come within a few days of the release.
Hard to believe that there's been no fix for the proximity sensor issue on the iPhone 4, almost two months after launch. This is the one true problem with the iPhone 4. Is anyone else as mad as I am?.
Have you called Apple about this? My boss had the proximity problem, called and they said they would replace the phone.....and they did.
Yes. that's the type of post that people make when they've lost the argument.
You claimed that Apple hasn't made FaceTime an open standard. There are two possibilities:
1. You are making it up and telling lies to try to make yourself feel important.
or
2. You have evidence to back up your position - in which case you should be able to provide that evidence.
Now, either provide the evidence or admit that you were lying all along. There's no other alternative.
Well, if you'g going to be a giant dick about I guess you deserve to be called out.
You're asking for proof of a negative, which is a logical fallacy. You're wrong. Period.
The assertion is "Facetime is an open standard." Proof of that statement would lie in an example of a standards body having access to the code and its availability for developers to build on, sans licensing costs. That's what open standard means.
"Proving" the negative simply isn't possible, since there always exists the possibility that the code is available and we're just not aware of it, or the process is well under way and we're just shy of an announcement, or the like.
It's like being called on to prove you're not a murderer. It may be possible to prove that you are, but the negative requires every moment of your life thus far to be available for examination-- hence the fallacy.
I think it may be because you misread NassarAE's comment.
I'm pretty sure he's asking for VoIP calling without first initiating it as a video call, not for new protocols to do the exactly the same thing FaceTime's audio already does.
Regardless, I think we're all on the same page now.
It's an interesting question, though: Apple has a potential VoIP solution, but may choose to market it subsumed into the FaceTime brand.
I agree that that isn't necessarily a good idea. There are real psychological barriers to the adoption of video chat, and people who may be ready and eager to embrace an Apple branded VoIP service might not be particularly interested in having their heads displayed to the caller.
Yes, video could be disabled, but that still feels like a video call with the picture turned off, which still evokes those same psychological barriers. I think Apple could address this by segregating out the voice portion of the service and allowing it to have its own brand. No new standard or technology, just a little savvy market positioning.
I realize Apple wanted a splashy tech win for their platform, but I actually think they might have a better adoption rate if they sold this as VoIP with video being a toggle-able extra. My suspicion is that most people just don't like video chat (for a variety of reasons that maybe boil down to "I'm not really up for anyone looking at me right now"), at least at the moment.
FYI, Davd Foster Wallace has a hilarious bit about the rise and fall of videophones in his novel Infinite Jest. The relevant passage (I cribbed this from Kotke, it was the only online citation I could find):
Good old traditional audio-only phone conversations allowed you to presume that the person on the other end was paying complete attention to you while also permitting you not to have to pay anything even close to complete attention to her. A traditional aural-only conversation [...] let you enter a kind of highway-hypnotic semi-attentive fugue: while conversing, you could look around the room, doodle, fine-groom, peel tiny bits of dead skin away from your cuticles, compose phone-pad haiku, stir things on the stove; you could even carry on a whole separate additional sign-language-and-exaggerated-facial-expression type of conversation with people right there in the room with you, all while seeming to be right there attending closely to the voice on the phone. And yet -- and this was the retrospectively marvelous part -- even as you were dividing your attention between the phone call and all sorts of other idle little fuguelike activities, you were somehow never haunted by the suspicion that the person on the other end's attention might be similarly divided.
Video telephony rendered the fantasy insupportable. Callers now found they had to compose the same sort of earnest, slightly overintense listener's expression they had to compose for in-person exchanges. Those caller who out of unconscious habit succumbed to fuguelike doodling or pants-crease-adjustment now came off looking extra rude, absentminded, or childishly self-absorbed. Callers who even more unconsciously blemish-scanned or nostril explored looked up to find horrified expressions on the video-faces at the other end. All of which resulted in videophonic stress.
And the videophonic stress was even worse if you were at all vain. I.e. if you worried at all about how you looked. As in to other people. Which all kidding aside who doesn't. Good old aural telephone calls could be fielded without makeup, toupee, surgical prostheses, etc. Even without clothes, if that sort of thing rattled your saber. But for the image-conscious, there was of course no answer-as-you-are informality about visual-video telephone calls, which consumers began to see were less like having the good old phone ring than having the doorbell ring and having to throw on clothes and attach prostheses and do hair-checks in the foyer mirror before answering the door.