In July Apple unveiled FaceTime for the iPhone 4, Then they expanded it to the new iPod Touch. Mr. Job promised there was more to come, boasting Apples submission to ISO boards to make FaceTime an open standard. Well nothing has come of that thus far, but Apple has released a major addition, FaceTime For Mac.
FaceTime is Apples response to video phones. A step beyond VOIP webcam applications like Skype, or Apples own iChat. FaceTime brought video calling directly to your cell phone. In the beginning there where major draw backs, Only iPhone 4 users could FaceTime with each other, and users both had to be connected to wifi that doesn’t block the ports FaceTime uses (which rules out public hotspots that only allow port 80 traffic)
Apple has done a few things to move FaceTime out of iPhone 4 exclusivity. Perhaps their biggest step so far appeared after the Back To Mac conference this month. FaceTime For Mac, bringing FaceTime calling directly to your OSX machine.
FaceTime for Mac is a free Beta download, and all you need is a free Apple account to get started if you have an iTunes account your all ready to go. FaceTime taps into your Address Book to pull your friends numbers, So sync your contacts from your iPhone and your all ready to call anyone with an iPhone 4.
FaceTime for Mac even excepts incoming FaceTime calls. Instead of a phone number iPhone 4 users can now FaceTime with the email address your apple account is linked to (and any other you manually added to FaceTime). Apple will ring all the computer you have FaceTime For Mac installed on, and will even wake them up if they are sleeping.
The application is self is simple in design and lightweight, so hard drive space and speed will not suffer by installing it. I would expect that FaceTime will be bolted in to the Lion the next version of OSX due out mid-late 2011. And that the API will be open to OSX developers to tap into with their applications, which will aid in adding it to third party VOIP and chat solutions like AIM, Yahoo, or Skype. effectively side stepping waiting for an open standard (at least for mac apps). Apple has not mentioned any of that, but it would stand to reason thats how this will play out.
Windows users will likely have to wait a bit longer. Apple priority is understandably to get the mac family up and running with FaceTime goodness.
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