FaceTime is a new service offered by Apple on their iPhone 4. It provides mobile video calling, mainly for consumers. From the moment it launched, we have seen a rise in requests coming from vendors to build similar solutions with their devices, which means that a hectic year is ahead of us. If FaceTime (or mobile video calling) interests you, then you might want to consider spending a bit of time on reading the list of resources I’ve collected from
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | September 2nd, 2010 | Filed under Technology
It seems like consumer video chat is set to grow – at least if you believe GigaOm’s research paper and Apple’s latest move with iPhone4 FaceTime service. There is though a huge install base that is being neglected here, which is the one that does mobile video telephony over 3G networks using 3G-324M. It has been around for years now, running across continents, operators and handset vendors. You can read more about its past and future at Vision Mobile. A
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | August 19th, 2010 | Filed under Protocol stacks
Now that I have actually made a FaceTime call or two from iPhones of some of my colleagues, it is time to say the truth: Apple has done a great job when it comes to the experience FaceTime provides. The audio quality is great. The video is more than adequate for a mobile device. And that portrait/landscape shtick is cool in a geeky way. But, as always in this case, Apple can improve. Here are a few ideas for
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | August 2nd, 2010 | Filed under Clients
There’s a lot to criticize about the new video calling service from Apple, FaceTime – that it isn’t interoperable at the moment, that it works only over WiFi, that you must have an iPhone 4 to be able to use the service, and so on. But there is something that FaceTime does for Apple that all the rest of its innovations in the latest release don’t: it separates it from the pack of Android devices. Think back on Apple’s previous
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | July 19th, 2010 | Filed under Technology
Steve Cheney started guest posting on TechCrunch. In one of his posts, he states that Apple’s strategy of vertical integration is ingenious: Perhaps the best example of this so far is FaceTime, Apple’s take on video-calling. 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. Apple eliminated this friction
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | July 12th, 2010 | Filed under Technology
June has been a really interesting month. It started off with the iPhone 4 FaceTime announcement and ended up with Cisco’s Cius announcement – from mobile video telephony for consumers to enterprise “personal telepresence”. It happens that I’ve published this month a few posts on other blogs about these subjects, so if these subjects interest you, check them out. The past, present and future of Mobile Video Telephony (Vision Mobile) I have met with Andreas Constantinou from Vision Mobile when
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | July 1st, 2010 | Filed under Miscellaneous
This is one of several posts about Apple’s iPhone FaceTime service. The reason for writing about it is because it is such an interesting issue: Apple, the king of usability, is trying to solve the user experience of mobile video telephony. What I want to deal with here is a slew of open questions about the openness of FaceTime. And to start, you should read this post by Ajit Jaokar about possible meanings of open. Which ones can be covered
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | June 24th, 2010 | Filed under Standardization
Here’s the thing – standards are a means to an end. The end game in this case is interoperability. How do I know that people miss this minor but important distinction? When they start talking about the openness of Apple’s FaceTime solution. Anatoli Levine was kind enough to give an overview of the different standards used by FaceTime. So why doesn’t it work with other, similar clients? It doesn’t even connect to Apple’s own iChat service. Yet. Furthermore, for
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | June 17th, 2010 | Filed under Technology
The new iPhone 4 was just announced. It’s not 4G or HD – just 4. I have to give it to Steve this time – not calling it 4G means he isn’t jumping the LTE wagon just yet. And not calling it HD means he really knows what HD is, and while the display of the new iPhone is impressive, HD it ain’t. The worst part of it all? It has a front facing camera. And as someone who predicted
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | June 9th, 2010 | Filed under Clients
If you haven’t been on this planet for the past several weeks, then I should tell you that Gizmodo have put their hands on a future iPhone prototype. I don’t really want to delve into the realm of questions running around how much they paid, whether it really is an Apple product, staged or got lost. iPhone launch day Instead, I want to deal with the video chat camera issue – not the question of is it real or
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By Tsahi Levent-Levi | May 10th, 2010 | Filed under Clients
