Live data from Hacker News

FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

theverge.com

51–60 of 352 posts

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#51

Maybe this means Apple will bring iMessage to Android in a year or two just to mess with Facebook Messenger.

ignorant q: does Messenger still hold much of market share? over the last few years almost all of my contacts transitioned to WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal. Messenger is just way too bloated.

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#52
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple could have brought iMessage to android at any time. They explicitly choose not to because of the social pressure to buy an iPhone this places on youth. This was pretty explicitly laid out in the Epic v Apple case.

That plan only worked in the US though, and it spectacularly backfired everywhere else, where iMessage is mostly irrelevant. I know a guy that never set up iMessage on his iPhone - when I asked him why he didn't, he just told me he only uses SMS for OTP which he reads from the notification, so it never occured to him to open the Messages app at all.

Doesn't seem like much of a "backfire", it gave Apple big strides in the US market and at worst resulted in less people using a free service Apple has to pay to operate in other markets.

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Close, he said they were going to make it standard (but then never did): "Now, FaceTime is based on a lot of open standards — H.264 video, AAC audio, and a bunch of alphabet soup acronyms — and we're going to take it all the way. We're going to the standards bodies starting tomorrow, and we’re going to make FaceTime an open industry standard."

I believe it was something to do with the VirnetX patent troll lawsuits that prevented them from fulling that standard.

That Texas Eastern Court single handedly held back progress for at least a decade for everyone in the world with their insane patent troll rulings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_f...

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#56

Steve Jobs notably said FaceTime was built to be an open standard when he introduced it on June 7, 2010 .

It's suspected that this was thwarted by the VirnetX lawsuit. And Apple had to do a "design around" [2].

https://www.cnet.com/news/steve-jobs-promised-to-make-faceti...

[2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/report-after-pat...

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#57
post #42

Wow. That is unexpected. I have to say that FaceTime in a browser sandbox is one of the few Apple products I would consider using. I wonder what made them take this path? I also wonder if someone could build a Matrix bridge if it is available via web, that would be fairly cool. Some questions: - Is it phone-number based IDs? Or can I pick a username or get a random ID? - Is spam going to be a problem? Previous Apple…

This is a honest question, so, what is so good about FaceTime? I have not used an iPhone since version 3GS, so it has been a while, but I understand it is just something similar to whatsapp video calls, google meet, or even zoom?

It's just easier to use for Apple entrenched people. You can automatically see which of your contacts you can call with it and you can do it straight from the contacts app. Plus it will ring iPhone/Mac/iPad. Otherwise it's not considerably different.

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#60
post #42

Wow. That is unexpected. I have to say that FaceTime in a browser sandbox is one of the few Apple products I would consider using. I wonder what made them take this path? I also wonder if someone could build a Matrix bridge if it is available via web, that would be fairly cool. Some questions: - Is it phone-number based IDs? Or can I pick a username or get a random ID? - Is spam going to be a problem? Previous Apple…

This is a honest question, so, what is so good about FaceTime? I have not used an iPhone since version 3GS, so it has been a while, but I understand it is just something similar to whatsapp video calls, google meet, or even zoom?

I am not aware of anything in particular. But my threshold of "I will run it in the browser" is fairly low, so if someone wanted to do a FaceTime call with me I would join.
Post reply on HN