We knew it was coming for a long time, or at least pretty much every analyst and rumor said it was. And then low and behold, at WWDC 2010, Steve Jobs announced FaceTime for the iPhone 4. The ability to make video calls between two iPhone 4′s, it was revolutionary, extraordinary, out of this world, mind boggling stuff. Or was it?
Personally I couldn’t give a toss about FaceTime. It’s nothing new and it’s nothing I’m ever going to use. I’ve owned phones in the last 3 years or so which all had front facing cameras as well as support for 3G video calling. Something the iPhone 4 doesn’t even support. At the moment you can only use FaceTime over Wi-Fi (unless you try this little trick) between iPhone 4′s. With those phones from several years ago, I could make video calls over 3G, and to any phone that supported it, and there was a lot of them.
However, fewer and fewer phones are now supporting video calls and front facing cameras. Why? Simply because nobody used it! I probably used video calling on my phone twice during the time I owned it, and it would only have been to try it out, there’s just no practical use for it.
FaceTime is no different from the features found in phones of the past and the present. The Evo 4G has video calling in it as well, but big deal. Apple on the other hand think that FaceTime is the reason the iPhone 4 is so great. They’ve gone and released 4 new commercials for the iPhone 4, all focused around the iPhone 4, and while they’re nice, can you imagine yourself using FaceTime for any of these situations?
FaceTime is not the killer feature that will make everyone jump up and buy the iPhone 4, or at least it shouldn’t be, and I would definitely not buy a phone because it has support for video calling over Wi-Fi. Why not just fire up Skype on your netbook or something, it’s the same thing.
And even when AT&T finally get their act together and you can do FaceTime over 3G, I don’t think it will make any difference at all.
Maybe I’m just completely wrong here and part of the minority, but I think video calls are pointless, and certainly wouldn’t be my main marketing focus when selling a smartphone.
Let me know in the comments if you think I’ve lost my sanity or if I’m onto the truth here
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