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I don't get it. Videoconferencing is insanely old and never took off. First there was ISDN video conferencing.. apart from the job at a telco i did once i've ne

by buster 16y ago

I don't get it. Videoconferencing is insanely old and never took off. First there was ISDN video conferencing.. apart from the job at a telco i did once i've never actually seen one that was used. Second, the first UMTS mobile i got had video conferencing, that's really a long time ago (Motorola V980 btw.) and many UMTS phones shipped with the second camera for years now. Yet, noone ever used it. Atleast i've never seen or heard of someone, although technically i could have done that with most people i know for years. Is it that this feature was never available in the U.S.? Or why is this news over there? Also, i've probably overread some feature that distinguishes it from the old UMTS way.

paul 16y ago
The important feature is that on the iPhone it will actually work. Also, there will be enough distribution to actually establish video calls on a regular basis (because both ends have an iPhone).
- buster 16y ago
  It was very easy on the Motorola too. And it worked with every other UMTS phone not only between Motorolas. I mean, it's not that hard to pick a contact and instead of "call" press "video call".
  - megablast 16y ago
    I had a motorola e1000 with video chat. The difference this time might be that I will actually have other people to talk to. Not that I particularly want video chat, and I would be surprised if it does catch on that much. A nice aside every now and again, but it is not going to replace what we have now.
- trezor 16y ago
  Except you have to call first to verify that whoever you are calling is on wifi. In Europe where wifi is something you have to search for and 3G is something which is everywhere, this renders the feature absolutely useless.
  - protomyth 16y ago
    Going by the comment on "working with carriers", I believe folks in Europe will be able to video chat over 3G in the not-too-distant future.
    - buster 16y ago
      No, you don't get it. Folks in Europe have been able to videochat since the first UMTS phones came out.
      - protomyth 16y ago
        I'm sure you have. I was just referring to the iPhone 4's video chat. Carriers will determine when it will work over 3G. I expect European carriers will take the lead as they did with the tethering.
  - snom370 16y ago
    I don't have to search for wifi at home or in the office, and that's where I spend most of the time. Even so, I'm pretty sure Apple has thought this through, making it quick and easy to discover if someone is online, and even invite them through push notifications. They did mention that they "had some details to work out" with the operators, which means that we will probably see video calls on 3G at some point in the future.
    - lutorm 16y ago
      At home and in the office are also exactly the places where I'm also at a computer which runs skype and can already video chat. No compelling advantage there.
      - snom370 16y ago
        It's a bit easier to move around your home with a phone, so I'm guessing this is going to be used more frequently just because it's more convenient. Same with Skype now that the iPhone supports multitasking.
- lutorm 16y ago
  This would seem useful if you could do it over 3G. As someone mentioned, that's been done in Europe for something like 5 years. Otherwise, being able to video chat over wifi -- skype (and ichat, though ichat seems much more picky about firewalls) has done that for years, too. Yeah, true, now you'll be able to do it without your laptop (but still have wifi), but it's not like it's some kind of revolutionary leap...
  - buster 16y ago
    Also, now that they aren't using the already existing technology UMTS, but they have been preventing Skype video calling for years (iirc). When they do video calls, why didn't they just enable skype and instantly have a much bigger userbase and also that would potentially include videocalls between all platforms skype runs on. Edit: Well, ok. The former iphones had no second camera.
    - snom370 16y ago
      And they _have_ enabled Skype, and even demoed it running in the background when introducing iPhone OS 4. So I'm guessing that they will allow video camera support for Skype as well, although you can never know with Apple.
      - buster 16y ago
        ahh, ok, didn't see that, apologies! Good news, then! :)
- crocowhile 16y ago
  It worked on my 6-7 years old sony ericcson with 3, back in Europe. Plus, it was free for any 3 users and didn't require WIFI but 3G. I never used it. Maybe jobs will manage to change people habits, though, and times are different. When I had that (bulky) phone skype was not offering video conferencing yet.
nc 16y ago
Wap is insanely old and never took off. Until the iphone and 3g. Technologies need to mature and reach a level of performance and usability before they go mainstream. This is what's happening with iPhone & videoconferencing now. This is it's time.
- buster 16y ago
  I guess you meant UMTS, not WAP. Anyway, time will tell. So, for those video calls people have to use iPhones at both ends although it would be easy to do that interoperable? I am wondering what the word "open" meant on one of Steves slides sigh
  - snom370 16y ago
    On the following slide, he listed a bunch of open standards (SIP, SRTP, ..), which they presumably use. If they hold true to their word (remains to be seen), other handset operators will be able to build similar support into their handsets.
    - buster 16y ago
      Actually, i disagree to call H.264 "open" which is also on that slide. I mean, you are right, there is a list of open protocols, he could've also added tcp, ip, dns, ntp, etc. to it. It just seems so contradictory when Steve dedicated a whole slide for the word "open" and in the end presents an iphone-to-iphone technology.
      - snom370 16y ago
        As I said, it remains to be seen how open it will actually be. But at least all of these standards are either completely open or available for licensing, so unless they have added some "secret sauce" on top (for instance that iPhones will only ever talk to other iPhones through Apples discovery service) then it's a good starting point. AFAIK, H.264 is an open standard. That it's patented and not royalty free doesn't make it closed, it simply makes it non-free. Another example is the G.729 voice codec, which has lots of open source implementations, but to use it you will have to buy a license. Open source PBX vendors like Digium provide licenses to those that need them. It's not an ideal situation, which is why G.729 is not as popular in the open source world, but it's still better than Skypes proprietary protocol.
snom370 16y ago
The difference is that the quality of the 3G video calls was usually really crap, and most people thought that it cost a lot of money (well, in some cases it did). Just look at Skype, it's really popular, also with video calls. Video conferencing for business is also big enough that Cisco bought Tandberg for $3B. It just has to be good enough and easy enough to use that people won't have to think twice about it. The interesting thing here is that they are touting open standards (SIP, SRTP etc). If this gets traction outside of the Apple-sphere (which must be their intention), it might spell trouble for Skype as a proprietary, closed platform. If wifi calling "just works", then this, combined with Skype being demoed as a multitasking app, _might_ be a big "fuck you" to the telecom operators. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it'll be interesting to follow.
jsz0 16y ago
Just goes to show how important it is to make technology accessible. How many people were willing to buy an ISDN line and $500+ of hardware to make video calls at both ends? The phones with video conferencing were usually very off-putting to use with bad GUIs and poor quality cameras. Even Skype, which is fairly easy to setup and use, has only really caught on in the last few years.
paulitex 16y ago
(tablet computers) are "insanely old and never took off". Same could of been said about mp3 players in 2001. Apple's pretty good at taking old good ideas that never took off because of poor execution and doing them right.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  We must remember that at the same time other computers had switches and LEDs, the Apple II had keyboard and video-out. It had slots and you could turn it into anything you wanted (including a PC-compatible), something you couldn't do with later products but that's another story.
car 16y ago
I think the big difference will be in experience on the iPhone. Older systems were plagued by low resolution, crappy compression and lag / latency due to network routing issues (proxies etc.). Judging from the videos, the iPhone 4G uses hardware to encode/decode the VGA video in H.264, which makes for low latency and high quality of that part in the processing chain, and by using standards like STUN/TURN, allows for mostly direct (p2p) connections between IP endpoints, thus using the best possible path for the media, with the result being low latency. It will be interesting to see if Apple can coax the carriers into QoS for the video, once it travels over their 3G networks. And it's also interesting that Apple chose pure SIP, rather then the IMS SIP that carriers have been trying to cook up over the last (almost) decade. [EDIT] Digging some more, Apple is working with the carriers to get their networks ready for video calling, which probably means that they will offer QoS, for a price. Prepare to pay for the privilege...
kingkawn 16y ago
People want to be able to silently make screw faces when talking to each other, it's human nature.

by buster 16y ago

paul 16y ago

The important feature is that on the iPhone it will actually work. Also, there will be enough distribution to actually establish video calls on a regular basis (because both ends have an iPhone).

buster 16y ago
It was very easy on the Motorola too. And it worked with every other UMTS phone not only between Motorolas. I mean, it's not that hard to pick a contact and instead of "call" press "video call".
- megablast 16y ago
  I had a motorola e1000 with video chat. The difference this time might be that I will actually have other people to talk to. Not that I particularly want video chat, and I would be surprised if it does catch on that much. A nice aside every now and again, but it is not going to replace what we have now.
trezor 16y ago
Except you have to call first to verify that whoever you are calling is on wifi. In Europe where wifi is something you have to search for and 3G is something which is everywhere, this renders the feature absolutely useless.
- protomyth 16y ago
  Going by the comment on "working with carriers", I believe folks in Europe will be able to video chat over 3G in the not-too-distant future.
  - buster 16y ago
    No, you don't get it. Folks in Europe have been able to videochat since the first UMTS phones came out.
    - protomyth 16y ago
      I'm sure you have. I was just referring to the iPhone 4's video chat. Carriers will determine when it will work over 3G. I expect European carriers will take the lead as they did with the tethering.
- snom370 16y ago
  I don't have to search for wifi at home or in the office, and that's where I spend most of the time. Even so, I'm pretty sure Apple has thought this through, making it quick and easy to discover if someone is online, and even invite them through push notifications. They did mention that they "had some details to work out" with the operators, which means that we will probably see video calls on 3G at some point in the future.
  - lutorm 16y ago
    At home and in the office are also exactly the places where I'm also at a computer which runs skype and can already video chat. No compelling advantage there.
    - snom370 16y ago
      It's a bit easier to move around your home with a phone, so I'm guessing this is going to be used more frequently just because it's more convenient. Same with Skype now that the iPhone supports multitasking.
lutorm 16y ago
This would seem useful if you could do it over 3G. As someone mentioned, that's been done in Europe for something like 5 years. Otherwise, being able to video chat over wifi -- skype (and ichat, though ichat seems much more picky about firewalls) has done that for years, too. Yeah, true, now you'll be able to do it without your laptop (but still have wifi), but it's not like it's some kind of revolutionary leap...
- buster 16y ago
  Also, now that they aren't using the already existing technology UMTS, but they have been preventing Skype video calling for years (iirc). When they do video calls, why didn't they just enable skype and instantly have a much bigger userbase and also that would potentially include videocalls between all platforms skype runs on. Edit: Well, ok. The former iphones had no second camera.
  - snom370 16y ago
    And they _have_ enabled Skype, and even demoed it running in the background when introducing iPhone OS 4. So I'm guessing that they will allow video camera support for Skype as well, although you can never know with Apple.
    - buster 16y ago
      ahh, ok, didn't see that, apologies! Good news, then! :)
crocowhile 16y ago
It worked on my 6-7 years old sony ericcson with 3, back in Europe. Plus, it was free for any 3 users and didn't require WIFI but 3G. I never used it. Maybe jobs will manage to change people habits, though, and times are different. When I had that (bulky) phone skype was not offering video conferencing yet.

nc 16y ago

Wap is insanely old and never took off. Until the iphone and 3g. Technologies need to mature and reach a level of performance and usability before they go mainstream. This is what's happening with iPhone & videoconferencing now. This is it's time.

buster 16y ago
I guess you meant UMTS, not WAP. Anyway, time will tell. So, for those video calls people have to use iPhones at both ends although it would be easy to do that interoperable? I am wondering what the word "open" meant on one of Steves slides sigh
- snom370 16y ago
  On the following slide, he listed a bunch of open standards (SIP, SRTP, ..), which they presumably use. If they hold true to their word (remains to be seen), other handset operators will be able to build similar support into their handsets.
  - buster 16y ago
    Actually, i disagree to call H.264 "open" which is also on that slide. I mean, you are right, there is a list of open protocols, he could've also added tcp, ip, dns, ntp, etc. to it. It just seems so contradictory when Steve dedicated a whole slide for the word "open" and in the end presents an iphone-to-iphone technology.
    - snom370 16y ago
      As I said, it remains to be seen how open it will actually be. But at least all of these standards are either completely open or available for licensing, so unless they have added some "secret sauce" on top (for instance that iPhones will only ever talk to other iPhones through Apples discovery service) then it's a good starting point. AFAIK, H.264 is an open standard. That it's patented and not royalty free doesn't make it closed, it simply makes it non-free. Another example is the G.729 voice codec, which has lots of open source implementations, but to use it you will have to buy a license. Open source PBX vendors like Digium provide licenses to those that need them. It's not an ideal situation, which is why G.729 is not as popular in the open source world, but it's still better than Skypes proprietary protocol.

snom370 16y ago

The difference is that the quality of the 3G video calls was usually really crap, and most people thought that it cost a lot of money (well, in some cases it did). Just look at Skype, it's really popular, also with video calls. Video conferencing for business is also big enough that Cisco bought Tandberg for $3B. It just has to be good enough and easy enough to use that people won't have to think twice about it. The interesting thing here is that they are touting open standards (SIP, SRTP etc). If this gets traction outside of the Apple-sphere (which must be their intention), it might spell trouble for Skype as a proprietary, closed platform. If wifi calling "just works", then this, combined with Skype being demoed as a multitasking app, _might_ be a big "fuck you" to the telecom operators. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it'll be interesting to follow.

jsz0 16y ago

Just goes to show how important it is to make technology accessible. How many people were willing to buy an ISDN line and $500+ of hardware to make video calls at both ends? The phones with video conferencing were usually very off-putting to use with bad GUIs and poor quality cameras. Even Skype, which is fairly easy to setup and use, has only really caught on in the last few years.

paulitex 16y ago

(tablet computers) are "insanely old and never took off". Same could of been said about mp3 players in 2001. Apple's pretty good at taking old good ideas that never took off because of poor execution and doing them right.

rbanffy 16y ago
We must remember that at the same time other computers had switches and LEDs, the Apple II had keyboard and video-out. It had slots and you could turn it into anything you wanted (including a PC-compatible), something you couldn't do with later products but that's another story.

car 16y ago

I think the big difference will be in experience on the iPhone. Older systems were plagued by low resolution, crappy compression and lag / latency due to network routing issues (proxies etc.). Judging from the videos, the iPhone 4G uses hardware to encode/decode the VGA video in H.264, which makes for low latency and high quality of that part in the processing chain, and by using standards like STUN/TURN, allows for mostly direct (p2p) connections between IP endpoints, thus using the best possible path for the media, with the result being low latency. It will be interesting to see if Apple can coax the carriers into QoS for the video, once it travels over their 3G networks. And it's also interesting that Apple chose pure SIP, rather then the IMS SIP that carriers have been trying to cook up over the last (almost) decade. [EDIT] Digging some more, Apple is working with the carriers to get their networks ready for video calling, which probably means that they will offer QoS, for a price. Prepare to pay for the privilege...

kingkawn 16y ago

People want to be able to silently make screw faces when talking to each other, it's human nature.