Apple IS going towards video calling, after all!

Exactly as I envisioned 8 months ago, Apple seems to be moving towards a new and worthy accomplishment - getting bloody unfortunate heretofore Video Calling to the masses.

There are news spread around, and for me - that's rigid proof enough.

It would be nice if they expand some 3GPP standards, in part of video codecs - and open those for everybody else.
Such move would give more installed base of "new" video callers, and more chances to "connect people", bringing benefits to CSP.

Knowing Apple's business tactics, though, I find it highly unlikely that they release such feature to non-Apple users.
Most likely only iPad/iPhone users will be able to visually connect with those new features.
Selling more Apple devices is of course more important than "unduly taxing" CSP network.
Apple's got to know by now - they don't like it!

We're about to watch enrollment of a "new" killer app for 3G, folks!
I told you there were only two major ones, and this one was woefully amiss from the great platform.

6 things I will still miss in iPhone 3GS

1/ syncing over wifi (or bluetooth)
2/ video call
3/ haptics
4/ themes
5/ USB storage mode
6/ flash support

I will miss those, but (!) I will enjoy the rest!

Ah, and MMS support is quite lousy in 3.0... Just an attachment (no background color, no text formatting, no multi-page animations, no sound attachments). A half-hearted attempt, driven by mass-bickering more than belief...

Apple almost halves iPhone 3G production plans

Just a quick passing comment - let me speculate about the reasons behind
a slower sales of the Apple iPhone 3G.

1. Financial Crisis, of course.

On a more user-centric perspective:

2. Can it do video calls?
Steve did not include that functionality in his use cases demo. This does not create enough upgrade incentive for 2G users.

3. Still no MMS, no video recording.
This does not create enough upgrade incentive for 2G users.

4. No modem capability out-of-box.
This does not create enough upgrade incentive for 2G users.

All the value added in the new iPhone 3G was a higher speed, at the price of a faster battery discharge.

No wonder it does not go as far as expected.

I personally thought that iPhone 3G will be a revolution, at least a huge stimulus for 3G UTRAN usage, but, having omitted utterly important use cases (videocall, modem) Apple did not become the "3G Saviour"; neither they have stimulated existing iPhone users to upgrade, nor attracted enough of those people in the smartphone market, who were "sitting on a fence".

What will change tomorrow?

Today at 10am PST Steve Jobs will give a keynote at WWDC 2008 in San Francisco, USA.
Many people wrote about what products will probably be introduced.
I don't want to repeat that, let's try to imagine how (and if) the world will change, which triggers Mr. Jobs will pull again, like most every keynote.

Back in 1985 it was the Macintosh, starting the Era of "very human technology", with intuitive user interfaces and analogue control (via mouse). The all-in-one, take-anywhere design of computers.

If you remember 1997 - the introduction of the original iMac - you will understand that then it was the dawning of USB Era, the floppyless Era.

In 1999 the PowerMac Cube was introduced, thus "igniting" (Apple's own words) the Era Of The Compact Desktop Computers.
It seemed not very important back then, but we still see the continuity of that Era, even in other vendor's products.

What will be different this time? How today will change the world (OK, maybe just some markets, not the World? :)

One major change - 3G Mobile.
Yes, you could say Apple is "late to the party", full of other vendors and solutions.
But ask yourself and ask people - how much do we use 3G? How many people are really aware of the advantages?

Not really many, I witnessed. Besides the usual "internet is faster" there's not many people (in percent of the total mobile market) who get excited when they hear "3G". You hear? "The Internet is faster"...sounds like epitome to the TelCo World.

It's no surprise that many have tried, but still 3G is getting pretty low traction.
With iPhones, there'll be change.

Update: just noticed a post at here
There in comments I tried to analyze what's missing (I made a type in my name heh),
and there goes my explanation why Mr.Jobs spent so much on his flights last quarter...