I really like FaceTime but it has two major issues (not including the “Works only over WiFi” thing.
- Closed protocol. I’m not really an Open Source advocate – I’m an Open Standards and Formats advocate. The fact that Skype has been permitted to gain such a stranglehold pains me because of their lacklustre support for platforms and their poor UI. Look at Skype 5 as a perfect example.
FaceTime is based on numerous technologies:
- H.264 and AAC – video and audio codecs respectively
- SIP – IETF signaling protocol for VoIP
- STUN, TURN and ICE – IETF technologies for traversing firewalls and NAT
- RTP and SRTP – IETF standards for delivering real-time and encrypted media streams for VoIP
While FaceTime is based on open standards, Apple’s FaceTime service requires a client-side certificate. I.e. while the protocol might be open, access to Apple’s FaceTime service is controlled by Apple.
I don’t mind access being restricted (helps prevent spammers, prank calls) but it should be open as we’re 9 months now since it was released.
- Lack of Availability Notifications. As FaceTime only works on WiFI, it would be nice to have some sort of notification of availability. Maybe a third party could work with Google Latitude to detect where a client was and the app could have some locations set as “Available, With WiFi”. I know we’ve coped in the past with phone calls but this is a little different. Add a little flag for “Please don’t call now” and you’ve got the makings of a great little service. Of course, that would only work if FaceTime has some sort of URL schema which brings me back to the first point.
What would improve the service for you?