Forget video calls, FaceTime is an amazing VOIP trojan horse

More iPhone talk and an analysis: what the new FaceTime video call feature in the iPhone 4 means for the entire mobile phone and VOIP industries.

I’m not sure how exactly we missed this. It was probably because the announcement happened in two steps: 1) FaceTime is video calling (on WiFi), 2) FaceTime call are free and won’t count against your minutes (duh, it’s on WiFi).

The consequences are not so duh-worthy though. Think about this:
- You can switch a “regular” call to a FaceTime call, and it becomes free.
- You can initiate a FaceTime call without using a regular call.
- You don’t need to register an account or be connected to anything to use FaceTime.
- Consequently, all your normal phone contacts are already your FaceTime contacts.
- Because it’s WiFi, location doesn’t matter and you can call anyone on the planet.

Now imagine that you don’t care about the video aspect of it, as I suspect many people will once the novelty has warn off, and replace the word FaceTime in that paragraph with “Apple’s magical and revolutionary VOIP service”. You get the picture: it’s the most practical and easy to use VOIP service in the world.
Now imagine that this will potentially become a successful open standard, potentially integrated in many other products and services (other phones, iChat, Skype itself, etc). I’ll let you work out all the ways in which this is already a major event in and of itself.

My estimation is that this could dramatically hasten the switch from  ”phone service providers” to “data service providers” that we know / hope is coming for all our friends in the phone industry. Yeah, that’s big.

Update: You can already transform the call in a simple voice call: pressing the home button will “remove” the video and display the home screen. The video will pause (stays on the last image), and the voice continues. Video resumes when you return to the call (works like a regular one). So effectively, FaceTime can already be used as a simple VOIP service (if you don’t want video that is).

June 25th, 2010

  • http://www.66seven.co.uk/ White667

    Surely what you're talking about is just what 3 are doing here in the UK? Buy any phone from 3 (the phone company) and you get free calls between your phone and any other 3 phone through Skype, which comes on every phone. I don't even think you need a wifi connection but I'm unsure about that exactly.

    Anyway, I was thinking about this with the iPhone5 but until someone told me that it only worked between iPhone4's. It seems like a £500 device to do something which 3 offers on their £20 phones, I don't think Apple have quite the selling point.

  • http://patrickbeja.com/ Patrick

    Not exactly: with Skype you need to be logged in, to build a new list of contacts, etc.
    The ease of use and lack of need for setup here make all the difference. Also, the “open standard” nature might put it in more devices, which is another key to the success of that wild scenario…

  • http://www.66seven.co.uk/ White667

    I see that, the fact that people have had an iPhone previously and that giving people your phone number isn't exactly hard. People have a list of contacts already and you even know whether that conact has an iPhone or not already.

    Still, if you have Skype directly built into your phone, get a choice over the specifics of the devices and can even contact with people who use the computer client. I think the amount of difference in the cost between these phones and phones like it and then smartphones like the iPhone. For a mass reception of this newer way of making calls, I reckon it's services like 3 and Skype which offer it on both their business type phones and their payasyougo ones aimed at kids.

  • Guillaume

    Je trouve que ce que tu dis est juste, cependant quelle utilité si cela reste du wifi only ?

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  • http://voipsoftwares.org VoIP software

    Well it seems horrible, man.