Ok. Dude.

This is half troll and half genuine interest.

Do you actually use video calling on your phone? If so why? The idea does not seem overly useful to me and the fact that almost nobody does it makes me realise it is not just me that thinks that way.

Apple may have a different take on this but can you explain what pros and cons the "old school" way of doing things have.

?

I'm not John and I've never owned a phone capable of doing video. The cost has always put me off; both the cost of the phone and the cost of the calls.

However, I have used video IM quite a lot. If you're chatting to someone you love who you are temporarily separated from, it's really nice to see their face and expressions. Seeing their smile can mean a lot. It's about instant feedback and reaction to the things you say.

Since the iPhone video chat thing will be free, I can see a lot of couples and parents using it. I imagine small children will really appreciate it. Although, in the short term I expect it will mostly be used by "blokes" using their new toy for comedic purposes.

Pro: Cross handset calling

you forgot the 'cons' bit. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm stunned.

I've seen people try to make video calls on a couple of occasions. The first time was between two friends sat in the pub, just after 3G phones started appearing with video calling capability. They could voice call each other fine but they simply couldn't get a video call to connect at all. In the end they gave up. It looked to me like it was something to do with them being with different providers. Someone else showed it to me later, it looked like what you get when the BBC are talking to some journo in the middle of warzone transmitting back via a portable satellite dish. Blocky and about 10FPS. I know a few people who use skype or MSN video chat regularly. I don't know anyone who uses video chat regularly on a mobile device. I don't care if it's over wifi or 3G, I don't care if it's MPEG2 or H264. Much like 3D TVs, it strikes me as a technology that is being pushed by corporations rather than something their customers are actually asking for.
I certainly wouldn't pay extra for it as a feature and I definitely, absolutely, positively, wouldn't use it if I had a limited data allowance that I might need for something useful.

Jon

In Japan apparently the prostitutes use Video calls to decide whether they will see the man in person. It could happen here once the facetalk feature becomes more widespread amongst manufacturers.

I could get used to calling Apple iPhone users some of the slang terms for prostitutes

I had a video calling on my Sony Ericsson about five years ago. I even had free video call minutes in my price plan but I didn't use them. I tried it couple of times but it did nothing for me. I found it distracting having to concentrate on a small screen with a person's face on it for a longer periods.

yes but since at least two of the moderators/admins of this site have them, I would be a fool to say any of those names to them.

The Wi-Fi restriction doesn't necessarily strike me as a bad thing, after all you're going to get a better speed and it won't cost you anything*.

*I presume it won't cost you anything, because if they're charging you to use your own internet connection then that's disgraceful.

I stand by my statement.



This is Apple.... the company that have released a £600 telephone that loses signal when you touch it unless you buy extra plastic bumpers, the company that made you pay to remove drm from all the music you bought (through them) or made you pay more to get the music without DRM


It works on Wifi/3G with other solutions and from reviews quality seems similar on both so it seems to not be bandwidth dependent

I'm actually going to do something completely against my nature here and defend Apple on this one. It's more than likely that the RIAA put a bit of pressure on Apple to do that in a move similar to the surcharge they place on recordable media to 'compensate for lost earnings'.

But there are others among us who are firmly in the Android camp.

Android section of the Venn diagram

If they were to charge for you to use your own wifi connection it would not be very popular for long at all.

OMG really?!? Apple made me upgrade all my music collection that I previously bought from iTunes? OMG REALLY?!?
Ha, Apple made me do no such thing.
Troll.

Mark