Sunnyvale, California — Apple has targeted a great deal of its iPhone 4 marketing blitz around its so-called FaceTime video calling technology. But Sunnyvale, California-based internet pioneer Yahoo is about to challenge Apple for the mobile video calling crown, with plans to incorporate a video-calling feature into its popular Yahoo Messenger application for both the iPhone and Android mobile platforms.
The information was revealed during a conference with Reuters on Thursday by none other than David Katz, Yahoo Vice President of Mobile for the Americas region, informed the news media that the feature was on the way to the next version of the company’s messenger apps for both Android devices and the iPhone with built-in video calling capabilities.
Earlier this week, T-Mobile revealed that its new 4G myTouch smartphone would be bundled with a built-in Yahoo app for video calling. However, the availability of independent video chat apps for a wide-ranging set of camera-equipped smartphones could enable Yahoo to play a much bigger role in the mobile market.
(Credit: Yahoo)
Even though Cupertino, California-based Apple already allows applications such as Fring and Tango, which offer free video-calling over Wi-Fi and 3G, Yahoo is said to vying for Apple’s very own video-calling platform — Facetime. And unlike FaceTime, Yahoo’s mobile Messenger video chat feature, which is claimed to be functioning over both Wi-Fi and through carrier’s networks, will also be cross-platform, allowing users on their phone to video chat with users on the company’s desktop client (and vice versa).
According to Yahoo, more than 81 million individuals around the world use Yahoo Messenger. Hence, this functionality opens up the service to a much larger potential group of users who own either an iPhone 4/iPod Touch 4G or a camera-equipped Android-powered smartphone, rather than through something like Apple’s FaceTime, which currently only works for chats between iPhone and iPod Touch users. Yahoo has already submitted its revamped application for reviewing. Apple has yet to approve the app.
Video calling on the iPhone has proven to be a pretty problematic matter. Skype inexplicably does not provide a video calling feature on its iPhone app, even though video calls are one of its most popular features among people who use Skype on their PCs.
Besides, some people have speculated that Apple’s policy of restricting FaceTime use to WiFi-only is intended to prevent a flood of bandwidth-heavy video traffic from overwhelming AT&T’s already strained wireless network.
So it should be interesting to see how Apple reacts to a third-party app that effectively circumvents the company’s own approach to video calling. Until the updated version of the app arrives, users with iPhones and Android devices with front-facing cameras have a handful of options for video chat including Fring, Qik, and Tango. Skype too is expected to add the feature to its application at some point down the road, as the company has said that a third of calls made on its service are video chats.