Apple announces open standard FaceTime video chat for iPhone 4

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Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs announced his trademark "one more thing" on Monday by making a video call to the company's designer Jony Ive through a service called FaceTime, which Apple aims to make an open industry standard.

Jobs sat down and made a call to Ive through the new iPhone. His own picture showed up in a small box in the corner, while Ive took up the rest of the screen.

FaceTime requires Wi-Fi to operate, and works between iPhone 4 handsets. Jobs said that Apple needs to "work a bit" with the cellular providers.

The company said it plans to make FaceTime an open industry standard, potentially allowing communication with other devices.

No setup is required, and the feature can be enabled while on a call with someone. Either the front or rear camera can be used with FaceTime.

Apple showed a new commercial for the phone, which shows off possibilities with the video chat function. One demonstration had people speaking with one another via sign language.

💬 85 Comments

tulkas

said about 12 years ago

Looks nice, but sort of surprised it doesn't support iPhone to Mac chatting. That seemed like it would a no brainer. Wifi only is disappointing but is understandable when they have to use AT&T as the standard against which to set the bar for network capability.

tundraboy

said about 12 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tulkas

Looks nice, but sort of surprised it doesn't support iPhone to Mac chatting. That seemed like it would a no brainer.

It'll come, it'll come. Probably easier to put Facetime on OS-X rather than iChat Video on iOS 4. Question is, will it happen in 10.6 or 10.7?

sflocal

said about 12 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tulkas

Unless I missed something during the keynote, what makes you think it won't support iChat? I would think that it would.

solipsism

said about 12 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by sflocal

Unless I missed something during the keynote, what makes you think it won't support iChat? I would think that it would.

They specifically stated it was iPhone 4 to iPhone 4. I see nothing that would prevent them from using the technology in iChat for this, but so far it's not mentioned, which I think means it's just not ready at this point for connecting to PCs. Perhaps they want to do it through MobileMe to utilize Wide-Area Bonjour that is found in Back to My Mac for zero config connections. They might also want it to go live on Windows at the same time.

tulkas

said about 12 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by sflocal

Unless I missed something during the keynote, what makes you think it won't support iChat? I would think that it would.

You are right they didn't mention it. They did say it would be iPhone 4 to iPhone 4. I hope it will work with iChatAV on the Mac.

At the very least, the open sourced it, so as long as the approve apps that are based on it and the standard they are using is compatible with iChat AV, then I imagine someone will release a third party app to address it...or a Mac app that goes the other way.