Steve Jobs took to the stage yesterday to announce the iPhone 4. Whilst I am waiting for my iPhone 4 video to upload I wanted to bring you this bit of editorial to discuss FaceTime with you.
FaceTime is iChat on the iPhone… or is it? Whilst it was announced as an iPhone 4 feature, there was one part of Steve's keynote speech that got me to thinking. Take a look, it states that Apple will ship 10's of millions of FaceTime Devices in 2010. To me this indicates quite a few possibilities. Firstly, that FaceTime will become part of the Mac OS. Instead of iChat, you will launch FaceTime on your Mac and can then video conference with someone on their iPhone 4… how cool is that! Secondly, we have all seen the rumours of an iPod touch with camera. Maybe Apple are working on a version with a front facing camera on the iPod touch too, so that everyone can have some FaceTime with their loved ones.
It is also a possibility that they will still announce an updated AppleTV streaming device. If they do, it is easy for them to incorporate a FaceTime add-on, so we could be video chatting on out TV's. Add to this the fact that by the end of the year we may even see a 2nd generation iPad with camera… then you get an idea of the product lineup that could add up to Steve's 10 million quote.
Back to FaceTime… apart from not liking the name, it seems pretty great. Easy to make a video call, with voice being handled by your cellular network and the video via WiFi. It won't be as popular to begin with because of the requirement of within range WiFi. Once the mobile phone companies get up to speed and we can use the service over 3G or 4G then it'll fly and Apple will have another winner on their hands.