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Nothing I have seen in the Facetime play vs what Sprint is doing with Qik, or Fring, Knocking Live, etc. addresses the adoption hurdles that have stopped 3G video call / true mobile video calling dead in the water. But basically calling party has no idea who in his address book is video call capable. and knowing that your buddy has the iPhone 4 or the Droid/Evo is not enough…

1. If receiving party does not have a video chat/ video call ready device with the right software, call does not go through

2. If receiving party is not on a 3G or HSPA network with good network conditions, call does not go through. This could even be because the user, even if he is within 3G coverage, has switched his device to 2G-only mode to extend battery power, or so that he doesn’t experience handover call drops frequent in early stage 3G network rollouts.

3. If receiving party is not on Wifi or if the app is not on “standby” / running in the background, call does not go through

4. If caller loses his own coverage, call drops.

So as you can see, there are a lot of usability issues for video calling to become mainstream, and I agree that the US should learn from the experiences in Europe and Asia re the hurdles so they don’t fall in the same traps.

–Blums Pineda

EXICON

I was always curious why video telephony didn't stick. A year ago I experimented with video calling my teenage kids. It doesn't stick indeed. It wasn't price (practically free), complexity (as simple as placing regular call on Nokia and S/E), or coverage (five bar 3G).

I found that the main problems were awkward shooting angle (anatomy) and reluctance of being seen. Not sure Apple solved these two.

There was one killer app though – "See What I See". We kept using it until I switched to Android….

So may be the future of mobile video telephony is not in telephony? Should the technology be ported to other applications? May of them are one-way, and would greatly benefit from mobile-to-PC capability, as you point out…

Just concluding from history: The novelty will be in affordability, usability and joy of use

There was a GUI before Apple introduced Lisa/ Mac. There were MP3 players before Apple introduced the iPod. There were smartphones before Apple introduced the iPhone …

It really depends on the phone. On most phones I've worked with, doing a video call is as easy as sending an SMS. We have yet to see the iPhone's video chat capabilities running in the field and the whole hype surrounding it relates more to the fan base of Apple and the US – a country where video calling was never available.

Tim,

That's a really good question. While I don't know the answer, I'd venture that they are using an addressing scheme that sends that information as presence based information when you are in an active voice call with WiFi coverage. Their servers probably use a proprietary mechanism to handle that. In a way, it should be similar to the way Video Sharing works on AT&T's networks.

Tim

This didn't happen with other things Apple implemented and actually changed user behavior. Including Google Maps on mobile, apps, iPad, mobile email for the average subscriber etc.

The hype surrounding the new iPhone may be enough to bring video calling to mass market. And according to Jobs, video call setup is the easiest possible for end users, the most important and stickiest part of Facetime.

I have tried setting up video calling on my previous mobile several times with no success (Nokia E65). Normal users may try setting it once or twice and will stop there – regardless of 3GPP standards and operator demands for 3G-324M inclusion in handsets they offer.