In case you hadn't heard already, Steve Jobs gave a big keynote speech on Monday at WWDC, where he unveiled the new iPhone 4 and the improved iOS 4 to a roomful of developers. He laid out a long list of new software and hardware upgrades, including the integrated antennas, the new 'retina' display, the Gyroscope, the improved camera, and more. Believe me when I say that there was plenty for the audience members (and myself) to ooh and aah over.
The last feature Steve announced, the built in HD Video calling feature, is particularly interesting.
After conducting a live video call demo (an homage to the first public call onstage he made back in 2007 when the original iPhone was announced), Jobs revealed that video calling on the iPhone 4--called Facetime--is based on a 'bunch of alphabet soup acronyms'.
Hey, we recognize those!
Jobs announced that the intent is to make Facetime an open industry standard. Although Facetime will only work iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 (over Wifi) at the time of its release, it could potentially work with other video calling solutions in the near future. The pieces that make up Facetime may also be open for developers to take advantage of. Yes, I'm thinking of a world where I can conduct an HD video call from a Polycom phone to a coworker on a mobile VoIP client running on his/her iPhone. OnSIP already supports video codecs like H.264, and can be run on any standards based mobile VoIP client (see our mobile VoIP reviews for more info), but the integration of video and mobile VoIP would take things to a whole new level.
Regardless of what the future may bring, with the tens of millions of iPhone 4s to be sold just this year, more people will have access to HD video calling than ever before. And that's exciting no matter how you look at it.
Did you get a chance to watch the Apple keynote speech? We'd love to hear your thoughts.