A post on a blog called Funky Space Monkey this weekend has got Apple fanboys all hot under the collar.
The post suggests that UK mobile network O2 has accidentally revealed the next iPhone’s video calling capability. Its evidence? The O2 iPhone Simplicity tariff, which lists a price for video calls.
So, has O2 accidentally let slip a secret? After all, why would you need an iPhone tariff for video calls if the iPhone can’t do them? Don’t get too excited. Right here is a case of “less than meets the eye”.
O2′s Simplicity tariff is a ‘SIM-only’ only deal (“SIM-plicity”, get it?). The iPhone version of this tariff offers a SIM card to those with unlocked iPhones who want to use O2 without signing a contract. Just pop the SIM card in your iPhone and you’re in business. Unlike the usual Simplicity deal, the iPhone version has the iPhone-only Visual Voicemail feature priced into it, along with free wifi at The Cloud and BT Openzone hotspots, a perk O2 adds for its iPhone customers.
However, there’s nothing at all to stop users of this SIM from putting it in another phone, including those capable of video calls. To prepare for this possibility, O2 needs a price to charge you for video calls to cover the vague possibility you might make them.
So, don’t get too excited. The next version of the iPhone might well have a front-facing camera for video calls, but to base that assertion on the existence of a tariff, without understanding why that tariff exists, is a bit of a stretch.
This tariff stuff confuses me. The Nokia N95 and N97 have had video calling for ages, dependent upon the signal. What's the problem with the iPhone?
No Front facing camera. Only the iPhone 3GS has the processor omph to capture, encode and send video and receive a video stream at the same time. And O2's network needs to be able to handle the traffic.
iChat video calls are indeed a marvel, as are Skype video calls etc. And it would be awesome to do this via the iPhone. Yet how many of you seriously choose video chat over regular txt chat most of the time? There are times I love love video chat, however I would be thrilled with the simple ichat app on my phone instead of the 3rd party ones.
Ah, that would explain it, thanks.
Then how did the N95 and numerous other devices manage to support video calls since about 2003, unless they were capable of capturing, encoding and sending video and receiving a video stream (and of course displaying it, let's not forget that bit)?
Sure, of course they have. I used video calls on an N95 in the past, and I use it now on the N97, on the 3 network. I presumed @rbonini meant that the 3GS is the only *iPhone* that would be capable of doing this?