Let the video calling begin. While the new iPhone’s Facetime application promised to open up the mobile videoconferencing market — and threaten yet another deluge on operator 3G networks — today’s news that Fring has come out with a video app that can do calls between iPhone and Android users.
Information Week reported on the development:
One of the iPhone 4’s coolest features is FaceTime, Apple’s two-way video chatting software. Apple’s software is nearly flawless and works so easily that it should help video chatting become much more mainstream. It has several limitations: it only works over Wi-Fi, and it only works with other iPhone 4s. Want to video chat with your friend, who uses an Android phone? Fring has your back.
Fring has been offering Internet-based messaging and video chat to smartphone platforms for a while now. The latest version, which works with iOS4 on both the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS, provides iPhone users unrestricted two-way video calling over Wi-Fi or 3G internet with other iPhone, Android or Symbian devices.
Connected Planet’s take,
Rich Karpinski:
The challenge in getting any communications service to take off is, of course, the network effect. So while iPhone-to-iPhone video chatting is interesting, adding the growing universe of Android users to the mix is even more so. Hate to say we told you so, but our own Kevin Fitchard foretold this turn of events just a few weeks ago:
The question is whether Apple will extend the service to earlier iPhone platforms or even competitive platforms. Earlier iPhones may not have front-facing cameras, but they can probably receive a one-way video feed or rely on their back cameras. If FaceTime became an app for download in the Android Market, then the potential market becomes even larger.
The only big obstacle to FaceTime is likely the Wi-Fi restriction. Allowing video calling over the 3G network would drain a lot of capacity and lead to quality problems, BUT requiring both the caller and the recipient to be hooked into Wi-Fi simultaneously is going to lead to an awful lot of failed video calls. It’s not hard to imagine customers giving up on the service after a few failed attempts.
Which of course opens up a huge mobile operator opportunity, guaranteeing delivery of video calling over their networks. It’s very similar to the move Verizon made with Mobile Skype by placing those calls on its voice infrastructure. Over-the-top services like Skype calling or videoconferencing are interesting, but only if they actually work. Look for mobile operators to use applications like video calling to begin to take back control of their networks by offering QOS and SLAs for mobile services — much in the same way they make similar agreements for enterprise services today.
Will it take a major change of direction for consumers to start thinking in terms of QOS and SLAs? Yes. But mobile users have shown themselves to be very savvy in their adoption of technologies and relatively understanding — outside of some iPhone zealots — of the idea that they’ll have to pay something for the mobile services (i.e., minutes and texts) they consume.
That’s our take on this. Let us know what you think in the comments section below:
You can also do this with skype, where you are much more likely to find your friends and family. (My wife’s new HTC Droid phone from Verizon comes with Skype pre-loaded.)
By the way, Fring was found to be violating Skype’s terms of use, so they are no longer supported on skype.
I personally would not trust a company with such fast and loose attitude.