Why is every DF post ending up here on HN? For comments perhaps?<p>Google / Google Voice / Gizmo5 or any SIP provider offers data calls. I've been messing around with this on my iPad and it's very close to being viable. There's no question it is on Android.<p>I hope Apple keeps moving in this direction but I doubt they'll be the first to route around the carriers. Right now all signs point to Apple being happily engaged to AT&T.
My little brother did not have a cellphone for most of his just-completed Freshman year of college.<p>He had an iPod Touch with Skype and omnipresent WiFi. He called me (on my cellphone no-less!) while walking to class.<p>The iPod Touch already <i>does</i> this, even without FaceTime.
If this prediction holds, Apple could add an awful lot of value to MobileMe by providing a sort of answering machine service to subscribers.<p>I'm close to wireless for most of the day, but when I'm not it would be nice to have FaceTime callers that couldn't reach me leave a video message that got delivered via email.
There's a potential downside to this for Apple though: if they start allowing users to bypass carrier services, then the monthly cost of the service will start to go down as users use fewer features, but that also means Apple will get less of a subsidy from the carriers. Most people don't want to spend $700 on a mobile phone, so I'm sure they're not going to go out of their way to decrease carrier significance to any large extent.
<i>But surely, someday, there will be a non-phone-carrier wireless networking technology with far greater range than Wi-Fi.</i><p>This technology already exists. Here in Japan, emobile sells a "pocket wifi router" that has a 3G data connection built in. They advertise it in conjunction with an iPod touch.<p>WiMAX is another such technology.
I don't see why Apple are making the effort. It looks like they won't be making any money from FaceTime directly, so then it's just a nice feature to help sell more Apple kit. Why not save a lot of development and infrastructure cost by pre-installing a (custom) Skype?<p>(I realise that that doesn't make it exclusive to Apple, but I don't see Apple beating the network effects that Skype has working for them, either)
A perfect phone for home. We already ditched landlines. Mobile carriers are sucking our blood while their service keeps sucking.<p>I, for one, applaud apple's effort to bring video call to the masses.<p>I hope a future Apple TV display can do video calls too. Genius!