@a dumb cat This is expected, Apple is new to the game. Their implementation will probably get more efficient as time goes on. Will it surpass everyone else's? Probably not, but they'll say it does and for most use cases and users, they'll just accept it. It's a solid business strategy that has worked for them.
@a dumb cat Apple probably have to fight AT&T to get FaceTime approved over 3G. You've seen how AT&T being pissy has put the kibosh on other apps using 3G for video streaming, VOIP, etc.
Approving third party apps like this could well be part of Apple's strategy to get AT&T to lighten up about FaceTime.
@a dumb cat if you ever read anything. Apple said for now Facetime will be limited to wifi and between iphones.
also, the purpose of 3rd party apps are because the phones that support them obviously dont have the feature the app was intended for.
gosh apple, why dont you have a native sketching app, why dont you have a native voip app. why dont you havce a native app or feature that all the 3rd party applications have?
people will always talk shit about this phone. if they opened up the store and were more lenient, people would then start saying, well my phone did it first.
@Ben64 At least 50% of the time I've wanted to use FaceTime has been without Wifi. Ever heard of WPA? All your friends have wifi...but they don't post the WPA passwords on the walls.
@Bearpowers I think it's both. That is, Apple probably doesn't want to put their branding (FaceTime) on a throttled low-bandwidth/low-quality version that AT&T will currently allow.
@Jack No. It's not AT&T. FaceTime is limited to wifi also in all markets the iPhone4 is available in. So obviously, it is Apple decision to restrict it to just wifi.
Perhaps Apple's implementation sucks and isn't efficient. It might not be limited because they want it to be, but because they can't get it to work over anything else other than Wi-Fi.
Or perhaps you're talking out your ass. Unless you'd like to provide even a shred of evidence to support that. No? Okay then. Apple haters aren't really known for their ability to reason or use common sense.
What about from the park, your local coffee establishment that doesn't have free Wi-Fi, stranded out in your car and using the video conference to show someone how you need help with something, etc etc
@OjSimpson well first off - you dont have to have the cap. you can choose a different plan option or build a plan. second of all all ppl with iphone plans before the cap is deployed can keep their unlimited. (my case). thirdly data streams this compressed are not very big which leads me to last point - even with heavy, heavy usage i've never gone over 800 mb a month on my phone. im sure something like this would kick that up, but i can't imagine it being a big difference under normal use.
@The Advanced Kind Yea. It's the best one in the market. I'm surprise to see this approved. Of course with data caps you'd use it up a lot. So I'd use WiFi as much as possible instead of 3G.
@Bearpowers Verizon's data cap is at 5GB on their "unlimited" plan (learned this the hard way and the VZW rep constantly suggested I didn't look at the fine print close enough - dropped them the same day).
At&Ts pre-June 7th customers, Spring and T-Mobile are the folks with true unlimited data plans and there's word that Sprint's is actually on the 5GB cap, as well, so really it's just T-Mobile. But... they aren't pushing AT&T + Sprint data numbers around yet. Once they are, I suspect they will scale back as well.
@Jack Apple does benefit. There's a 99.99% chance that your isp connected to wifi will have enough bandwidth to have a smooth video conversation. This in turn leads to higher opinions of facetime, Apple in general, and less visits to a Genius bar. More rave reviews and less complaining is Apple's side of the compromise versus the "do it anywhere, but theres a chance it'll suck or not work at all." It may not satisfy everybody but in my opinion the emphasis what you can do well. It's the technical version of "If you cant say anything nice, dont say anything at all" -- "if you cant do it well (over 3G), dont do it at all"
@OjSimpson Won't take long, our tests here are showing 7.5mb per minute in bandwidth usage. So there has to be a trade off in video quality because AT&T can't sustain that type of bandwidth everywhere.
@Hoppesangen @Engadget Guys, can you please remake/remind people of the option to disable Apple posts because these 'Apple haters' are incredibly annoying. Personally I'm neutral and I still get super annoyed.
@Jack You must have missed the perhaps he typed.. Fanboys blindly follow a company that doesn't care about them so it's fitting that you blindly missed the perhaps..
I guess picture quality and reliability have no weight on your reasoning, but that isn't surprising considering you probably have an android phone and are used to a shitty experience anyways..
@tikigawd Because Appleost likely agreed with AT&T to restrict FaceTime to wifi to help prevent extreme stress on their network. There's way more people who would use video calling over 3G if it is built in versus those who would download an app like fring or qik, sign up for the service, and use it. If I was AT&T I'd be far more concerned of the former than the latter.
Jack you are wrong on this one. Nothing to do with att. ichat is bandwidth hog thats why it was so clear when he presented it. When i worked for the fruit company and did my recerts in Cup. i spoke with an engineer and asked why ichat needed so much bandwidth he said cause it was a hog. Its in the apple certification documentation.
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That's awesome! :D
@Hoppesangen
Haha, 3rd party app can do video over 3G and native facetime app can't. What's going on apple?
@Hoppesangen
Does it work with Android?
@Hoppesangen
Really cool..finally...wonder if you can call EVO users?
@a dumb cat
I think it might be ATTs Data caps doing that for Face Time.
Every other carrier in the US has uncapped 3G plans
Correct me if I am wrong
@a dumb cat This is expected, Apple is new to the game. Their implementation will probably get more efficient as time goes on. Will it surpass everyone else's? Probably not, but they'll say it does and for most use cases and users, they'll just accept it. It's a solid business strategy that has worked for them.
@a dumb cat
You mean "what's going on AT&T". Why would Apple intentionally limit facetime to WiFi? How does that benefit Apple? It doesn't.
@a dumb cat probably have to work out anything with the facetime protocol first.
Still kinda hard to imagine people doing video calls from anywhere but their home or hotel.
@a dumb cat Apple probably have to fight AT&T to get FaceTime approved over 3G. You've seen how AT&T being pissy has put the kibosh on other apps using 3G for video streaming, VOIP, etc.
Approving third party apps like this could well be part of Apple's strategy to get AT&T to lighten up about FaceTime.
I wonder how fast you will come under AT&T's cap using these services via 3g -__- you're bill might kill you ;)
@a dumb cat if you ever read anything. Apple said for now Facetime will be limited to wifi and between iphones.
also, the purpose of 3rd party apps are because the phones that support them obviously dont have the feature the app was intended for.
gosh apple, why dont you have a native sketching app, why dont you have a native voip app. why dont you havce a native app or feature that all the 3rd party applications have?
people will always talk shit about this phone. if they opened up the store and were more lenient, people would then start saying, well my phone did it first.
you guys sound like 5 year olds.
@Ben64 At least 50% of the time I've wanted to use FaceTime has been without Wifi. Ever heard of WPA? All your friends have wifi...but they don't post the WPA passwords on the walls.
@a dumb cat
my guess is, it has to do with AT&T related agreements.. their network just can't handled the added traffic.
@Bearpowers I think it's both. That is, Apple probably doesn't want to put their branding (FaceTime) on a throttled low-bandwidth/low-quality version that AT&T will currently allow.
@The Advanced Kind that would be awesome. then the evos and iphones can come together and talk shit to each other face to face, per say haha
@Bearpowers
Why would those AT&T caps apply only to FaceTime and not this?
@Jack No. It's not AT&T. FaceTime is limited to wifi also in all markets the iPhone4 is available in.
So obviously, it is Apple decision to restrict it to just wifi.
@Jack
Perhaps Apple's implementation sucks and isn't efficient. It might not be limited because they want it to be, but because they can't get it to work over anything else other than Wi-Fi.
@tikigawd
Or perhaps you're talking out your ass. Unless you'd like to provide even a shred of evidence to support that. No? Okay then. Apple haters aren't really known for their ability to reason or use common sense.
@Ben64
What about from the park, your local coffee establishment that doesn't have free Wi-Fi, stranded out in your car and using the video conference to show someone how you need help with something, etc etc
I guess you don't have much imagination...
Who cares. Moar Android news please
@Jack
Exactly? Why would they do that?
It's freaking ridiculous that FaceTime can't do 3G, but this app can.
@a dumb cat obviously they want to keep things as smooth as possible and its probebly higher quality.
@OjSimpson well first off - you dont have to have the cap. you can choose a different plan option or build a plan. second of all all ppl with iphone plans before the cap is deployed can keep their unlimited. (my case). thirdly data streams this compressed are not very big which leads me to last point - even with heavy, heavy usage i've never gone over 800 mb a month on my phone. im sure something like this would kick that up, but i can't imagine it being a big difference under normal use.
@The Advanced Kind Yea. It's the best one in the market.
I'm surprise to see this approved. Of course with data caps you'd use it up a lot. So I'd use WiFi as much as possible instead of 3G.
@Bearpowers Verizon's data cap is at 5GB on their "unlimited" plan (learned this the hard way and the VZW rep constantly suggested I didn't look at the fine print close enough - dropped them the same day).
At&Ts pre-June 7th customers, Spring and T-Mobile are the folks with true unlimited data plans and there's word that Sprint's is actually on the 5GB cap, as well, so really it's just T-Mobile. But... they aren't pushing AT&T + Sprint data numbers around yet. Once they are, I suspect they will scale back as well.
@The Advanced Kind Yes it does, I just did a video call with an iPhone 4 user and i have an EVO. He was on 3G and I was on 3G. Worked flawlessly.
@Hoppesangen
It's awesome until you get that bill from AT&T showing that you've used more than 2GB of data.
@The Advanced Kind Yes
@Jack Apple does benefit. There's a 99.99% chance that your isp connected to wifi will have enough bandwidth to have a smooth video conversation. This in turn leads to higher opinions of facetime, Apple in general, and less visits to a Genius bar. More rave reviews and less complaining is Apple's side of the compromise versus the "do it anywhere, but theres a chance it'll suck or not work at all." It may not satisfy everybody but in my opinion the emphasis what you can do well. It's the technical version of "If you cant say anything nice, dont say anything at all" -- "if you cant do it well (over 3G), dont do it at all"
@The Advanced Kind
Seeing as how it was on the Android market for a while now, and I have been using it I would say yes.
@Seven2k
Yes, and Skype users as well.
@Jack
Are you trying to say apple made a phone just for at&t ?
@OjSimpson Won't take long, our tests here are showing 7.5mb per minute in bandwidth usage. So there has to be a trade off in video quality because AT&T can't sustain that type of bandwidth everywhere.
@Hoppesangen
@Engadget
Guys, can you please remake/remind people of the option to disable Apple posts because these 'Apple haters' are incredibly annoying. Personally I'm neutral and I still get super annoyed.
@sweetvine
...nnnnoooo, and I'm not sure how you drew that conclusion.
@Jack You must have missed the perhaps he typed.. Fanboys blindly follow a company that doesn't care about them so it's fitting that you blindly missed the perhaps..
@The Advanced Kind android had it along time ago
I guess picture quality and reliability have no weight on your reasoning, but that isn't surprising considering you probably have an android phone and are used to a shitty experience anyways..
@tikigawd Because Appleost likely agreed with AT&T to restrict FaceTime to wifi to help prevent extreme stress on their network. There's way more people who would use video calling over 3G if it is built in versus those who would download an app like fring or qik, sign up for the service, and use it. If I was AT&T I'd be far more concerned of the former than the latter.
@Jack
Jack you are wrong on this one. Nothing to do with att. ichat is bandwidth hog thats why it was so clear when he presented it. When i worked for the fruit company and did my recerts in Cup. i spoke with an engineer and asked why ichat needed so much bandwidth he said cause it was a hog. Its in the apple certification documentation.
@RawheaD
ding you win the price you are 100% correct.
@a dumb cat they gotta suck At&t's shitty network dick so they can't right now
@Seven2k yes works fine with the EVO!
@Seven2k We did a video call with a Streak and an iPhone 4 as well.
@Bearpowers You are wrong.
@ichibon This is amazingly cool! Thanks for sharing. I like that it can work cross platform very much!
@The Advanced Kind yes it did from day one
@a dumb cat I know one thing; Apple has been known to pull apps after awhile, like what happened to Netshare. I'm downloading NAOW.
@audrywienerdog "you guys sound like 5 year olds. "
some of the shit on itunes app store only a 5 year old could appreciate!!!