When Will Apple Deliver On Its Facetime Promise?

Over on Daring Fireball and The Loop, Google is (rightfully) called out for taking development shortcuts, leading to further fragmentation, and failing to release Android Honeycomb source code to the community. Given their respective focus, the authors tie it all back to Cupertino:

Can you imagine if it were Apple delaying a software release.

Well, there’s something that has been bothering me for awhile. Facetime. It’s a pretty killer video communication solution primarily because, in typical Apple fashion, it’s dead simple to use. But, more importantly, it’s integrated into every current iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch — meaning there’s a huge installed base of potential users. However, Facetime communication is currently limited to Apple’s ecosystem. And that’s not something I’d normally have any problem with. Yet Steve Jobs announced Facetime as an eventual “open industry standard” – implying other services on other platforms would ultimately be able to utilize the Facetime protocol. About ten months after launch, there’s been no further public communication or movement on the interoperability front.

While my wife and I are iPhone 4 owners, many of our friends, family, and colleagues are on alternate platforms… and we’d like to simply Facetime with them via their Skype, QIK, or Yahoo Messenger apps.

10 thoughts on “When Will Apple Deliver On Its Facetime Promise?”

  1. Of course, submitting Facetime as an open industry standard is not the same thing as allowing access to Apple’s video chat network… while I’m impatient, I’m also selfishly optimistic. However, if Apple were to allow the Facetime network interoperability I’m looking for, it’d probably come attached to some sort of agreement or licensing (as we see with the $4/device Airplay proposition).

  2. I agree. And google has dropped the ball on the android side of things with google talk. Why won’t google talk work with my eve front camera? And for that matter, where is the Skype iPad update?

  3. Have you tried Tango yet? A friend showed it to me when I was up in New York last week. It let me set up a video conference between his iPhone and my Droid Eris. My Eris doesn’t have a front-facing camera, so the experience was limited, but the point is that the app made it easy to connect across platforms. Super sweet.

  4. I’m still waiting for a good solution for video chat on my HDTV. I’ve got two set-top boxes (TiVo and Apple TV gen 1) and neither do FaceTime or Skype. It would be a great way for the family to chat together. Much easier than crowding around the computer. Sure, I could put a computer in the TV room, but that’s more than a small bother.

  5. @Greg,

    I’m assuming that Apple will eventually add Facetime support to the Apple TV, allowing you to plug in some external camera sitting on top of your TV to that mini-USB port and supporting it that way. But will they? And if so when?

    I certainly wouldn’t hold my breath for Tivo to do it.

    If Google TV (which does offer it) were actually a viable platform right now, its support for videoconferencing might force others to do it.

    Honestly at the moment I’m just ignoring Facetime and using Skype when I want to make a video call on my iPhone. The wifi limit alone makes it unusable most of the time I’d want to use it.

    That said, I think Dave is completely right in calling Apple out on this. Leo does the same thing every time he thinks of it on the Macbreak Weekly podcast…

  6. iPad2 + the Digital AV Adapter should put facetime on the hdtv today. It might also be possible for Apple to connect facetime and airplay to enable ipods and iphones to connect to apple tvs for large screen chat as well. Although, that might be more than the network or the A4 silicon could handle at once, I’m not familiar with how taxing either spec is on those areas.

  7. Oops, I forgot why I started to comment. I too have been waiting for the Facetime open release and I’m *really really* happy Dave posted about it.

  8. Greg,

    There are a few video conferencing solutions out there for an HDTV. Dlink makes some solution but they are low res. Also, some of the new Panasonic Blu-ray players can do skype with attached cameras. And finally, there’s the Cisco UMI system that works in HD.

  9. … not to mention the failure of FaceTime implementation in iTunes on Windows. Somehow the media conveniently overlooks this absence of a revolution.

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