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Steve Jobs notably said FaceTime was built to be an open standard when he introduced it on June 7, 2010.

rektide 5y ago
And there is still seemingly zero expectation that FaceTime will be a standard. It's still a closed proprietary system. One that has web access to it now. Will non-Apple device owners be able to start FaceTime chats? TBD perhaps. Will non-Apple account holders be able to connect to FaceTime rooms? Maybe. Will they be able to create chats? Almost certainly not. It's unfortunate that the real spirit of creativity & innovation that Apple once believed in & knew has come to this. This is "progress", but such a narrow, corporately provided & limited window of progress, to me. I'm expecting friends will start expecting me to have an Apple account now & be willing to use their proprietary communications systems, now that the barrier is a bit lower, but I'd really rather not.
justinsaccount 5y ago
Close, he said they were going to make it standard (but then never did): "Now, FaceTime is based on a lot of open standards — H.264 video, AAC audio, and a bunch of alphabet soup acronyms — and we're going to take it all the way. We're going to the standards bodies starting tomorrow, and we’re going to make FaceTime an open industry standard."
- chrischen 5y ago
  I believe it was something to do with the VirnetX patent troll lawsuits that prevented them from fulling that standard.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    That Texas Eastern Court single handedly held back progress for at least a decade for everyone in the world with their insane patent troll rulings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Eastern_District_of_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_f...
- twobitshifter 5y ago
  Thanks for the correction. I’ve also read that FaceTime had to change from p2p to using a central server for call coordination after they were sued for patent violations. I wonder if that’s really what prevented it from being opened up. https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/31/21543315/apple-ordered-pay-virnetx-patent-troll-facetime-vpn https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/31/21543315/apple-ordered-p...
skunkworker 5y ago
It's suspected that this was thwarted by the VirnetX lawsuit. And Apple had to do a "design around" [2]. https://www.cnet.com/news/steve-jobs-promised-to-make-facetime-open-source-its-time/ https://www.cnet.com/news/steve-jobs-promised-to-make-faceti... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/report-after-patent-loss-apple-tweaks-facetime-and-logs-500000-complaints/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/report-after-pat...
- pfranz 5y ago
  I doubt this actually matters, but it looks like almost all those patents expire very soon. US7418504B2 - 2021-08-05 US6839759B2 - 2019-10-29 (expired) US7490151B2 - 2022-01-24 I'm guessing rearchitecting to circumvent the patents means they're not going to unrearchitect just to open it up. If I'm understanding things correctly, instead of p2p it gets tunneled through a server to avoid the patents. Since FaceTime launched, most services realized with more than 2 people you'd want to go through a server anyway (and you also get benefits of re-encoding for lower bit-rates). If you rely on Apple's servers to tunnel your call I imagine they're not going to open it up.
  - varanauskas 5y ago
    Still I think 2 way calls would benefit customers by reducing lag and Apple by reducing server load if using p2p
- Aissen 5y ago
  We now know this is false: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406303/imessage-android-eddy-cue-emails-apple-epic-deposition https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406303/imessage-android...
  - latexr 5y ago
    That link is about iMessage, not FaceTime.
quux 5y ago
This may be urban legend but I remember hearing that the first time the FaceTime team learned it was going to be an open standard was when Steve announced it on stage.
p_l 5y ago
That announcement came as big surprise to everyone other than Jobs, and then died of natural causes more so than because of any patent troll.

And there is still seemingly zero expectation that FaceTime will be a standard. It's still a closed proprietary system. One that has web access to it now. Will non-Apple device owners be able to start FaceTime chats? TBD perhaps. Will non-Apple account holders be able to connect to FaceTime rooms? Maybe. Will they be able to create chats? Almost certainly not. It's unfortunate that the real spirit of creativity & innovation that Apple once believed in & knew has come to this. This is "progress", but such a narrow, corporately provided & limited window of progress, to me. I'm expecting friends will start expecting me to have an Apple account now & be willing to use their proprietary communications systems, now that the barrier is a bit lower, but I'd really rather not.

justinsaccount 5y ago

Close, he said they were going to make it standard (but then never did): "Now, FaceTime is based on a lot of open standards — H.264 video, AAC audio, and a bunch of alphabet soup acronyms — and we're going to take it all the way. We're going to the standards bodies starting tomorrow, and we’re going to make FaceTime an open industry standard."

chrischen 5y ago
I believe it was something to do with the VirnetX patent troll lawsuits that prevented them from fulling that standard.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  That Texas Eastern Court single handedly held back progress for at least a decade for everyone in the world with their insane patent troll rulings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Eastern_District_of_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_f...
twobitshifter 5y ago
Thanks for the correction. I’ve also read that FaceTime had to change from p2p to using a central server for call coordination after they were sued for patent violations. I wonder if that’s really what prevented it from being opened up. https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/31/21543315/apple-ordered-pay-virnetx-patent-troll-facetime-vpn https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/31/21543315/apple-ordered-p...

skunkworker 5y ago

It's suspected that this was thwarted by the VirnetX lawsuit. And Apple had to do a "design around" [2]. https://www.cnet.com/news/steve-jobs-promised-to-make-facetime-open-source-its-time/ https://www.cnet.com/news/steve-jobs-promised-to-make-faceti... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/report-after-patent-loss-apple-tweaks-facetime-and-logs-500000-complaints/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/report-after-pat...

pfranz 5y ago
I doubt this actually matters, but it looks like almost all those patents expire very soon. US7418504B2 - 2021-08-05 US6839759B2 - 2019-10-29 (expired) US7490151B2 - 2022-01-24 I'm guessing rearchitecting to circumvent the patents means they're not going to unrearchitect just to open it up. If I'm understanding things correctly, instead of p2p it gets tunneled through a server to avoid the patents. Since FaceTime launched, most services realized with more than 2 people you'd want to go through a server anyway (and you also get benefits of re-encoding for lower bit-rates). If you rely on Apple's servers to tunnel your call I imagine they're not going to open it up.
- varanauskas 5y ago
  Still I think 2 way calls would benefit customers by reducing lag and Apple by reducing server load if using p2p
Aissen 5y ago
We now know this is false: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406303/imessage-android-eddy-cue-emails-apple-epic-deposition https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406303/imessage-android...
- latexr 5y ago
  That link is about iMessage, not FaceTime.

quux 5y ago

This may be urban legend but I remember hearing that the first time the FaceTime team learned it was going to be an open standard was when Steve announced it on stage.

p_l 5y ago

That announcement came as big surprise to everyone other than Jobs, and then died of natural causes more so than because of any patent troll.