- Image by BasBoerman via Flickr
The recent launch of Apple Facetime, the personal one-to-one video communication service available on the new iPhone 4G, made me think again on whether video communication is really a need for the “avarage” Joe (i.e., the “normal” user).
Facetime offers a very high quality service over Wifi only, that means that 100% of the times you need to be somewhere under wifi coverage (home?). Alternatively, you can also use a Mifi service while on the go or from your office.
In general, being on Wifi or 3G is not really the main problem. The main problem is about whether “normal people” really need mobile video calls or not.
A few years ago I wrote a post on my personal blog, “Why 3G video calls are useless“. In this post I highlighted a few strong reasons why, despite 3G video calls have been pushed strongly by many telecom operators in Italy since 2003, no one really uses it. Video calls have been a HUGE failure in any country where they have been launched: Italy, UK, Israel and more. Nowadays, since most cool smartphones don’t support it, it’s no more a key point in the advertising messages pushed by telecom operators. Looks like everyone suddenly forgot 3G video calls are available.
In my voice/data plan, I have unlimited video calls available, but I think I used it once or twice in the last 3 years. Same for most of my friends, colleagues and family members. The only time I wanted to use it was to see my little son during my trips to the US. But I ended up using iChat from my Mac, definitely no need of using it while far from my computer and I don’t think the new iPhone would change my behavior.
In my post, I also highlighted a few reasons why people don’t use it:
- make (or receive) a videocall while you’re on the go is not easy neither comfortable (think what happens if you’re driving…)
- privacy issues: if you don’t have a headphone, people around you can hear what your interlocutor is saying
- costs: usually a video call costs two/three times a voice call
- you usually don’t get more information from seeing the person on the other side (except for the cases described above)
- on most devices (Nokia included), you don’t have a dedicated button for video call, you have to choose a particular option from the menù, so it’s not properly user friendly
- you’re not always willing to show your face to the caller (just woken up and so on…)
I could also add that cost is no more a problem since most plans now include lots of video calls but people don’t use them anyway.
Is Apple going to disrupt the market with Facetime? Would people start using it just because Apple integrated it into their new iPhones? My answer is NO. I’m firmly convinced that mobile personal video calls will never really take off for one, simple reason: video calls are not a need since they don’t really solve a problem…and when there is no problem to be solved, people are less willing to use something, regardless of how cool it is.
What do you think? Am I going to be wrong? I sincerely hope YES.
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- Why Apple’s FaceTime is a win (edibleapple.com)
- Skype eager to work with Apple FaceTime, pretty much anyone else (engadget.com)
Solely from a historical viewpoint, if Apple can popularize the GUI, diskless computers, integrated webcam, multi-touch devices — I’m not going to bet against Apple with regards to mobile video calling. Lots of people miscalculate Apple because they only think about solving problems. Apple doesn’t aim to solve problems. Apple aims to use great design and engineering to enhance your life, personal or business (and make the company lots of money).
When the diskless Mac first arrived, it didn’t solve problems. In fact it created headaches for people. But Apple knew it was time to bid farewell to floppies because flash technology (found in USB drives) was becoming very affordable and broadband subscription was taking off (allowing for downloads and file exchanges via the Net).
Same thing with the multi-touch iPhone. The technology has matured, tiny keyboards are ugly, and humans naturally manipulate objects since childhood with fingers. It didn’t really solve a problem (agreeable by the legions of BB fans), but the UX was far more humanized and attractive.
Besides, Apple has never been a master of fulfilling a “need” — it’s a master at creating a “want.”
Disclosure: Yes I’m an Apple fanboy and still has a Newton to secure my fanboy cred.
I’m an Apple fanboy, too! And I agree, Apple is master in creating a “want”. But, for mobile video calling, I don’t think it is enough…
The answer may depend on how you measure success.
In terms of call minutes, I would say no since video scenarios are limited compared to voice (reasons 1, 4, 6 on your list).
In terms of user satisfaction, I would say yes, since those relatively few video-friendly scenarios provide high emotional engagement.
Reasons 2, 3, 5 on your list are not really valid for iPhone 4 with Facetime.
Usability appears as great as you would expect from Apple.
Privacy is not an issue in many Wi-Fi scenarios (home, hotel), and using headphones in shared office space is not too big a barrier.
So I think it quite plausible that eventually many people will place video calls from time to time.
Carriers dreaming up call minute based business cases may be disappointed.
Players who want to bind users into their eco-system may be happy.
This could end up similarly to MMS, which has inherently less usage frequency than SMS but is emotionally more engaging and used infrequently by a relatively high proportion of people.
I completely agree with your conclusion in this article. Most people really don’t need to make video calls for business – Period. It is a nice feature to have, but I could definitely live without it for business purposes.
Personal/Family is another matter, everybody would rather see and hear their loved ones especially the babies.
There may some businesses that can make good use of a mobile video service. The Porn industry will probably use this feature, even on an iPhone. I don’t think Apple will be able to block this.
“Mobile Video Calls Are Not A Real Need. Period.” I remember a good friend of mine said similar line on mobile phones, who would ever believe what mobile will become.
Anyway, video was not success back then because it was mostly bad quality. Once it will be with good quality people that need it will use it.
Skype didn’t have when they start with video so many video users, but today 34% (and at pik 50%) are video calls.
The whole market these days is about extensive segmentation. It makes sense to believe while video chat isn’t for you, it may be perfect for other sizeable demographics. Reminds me of the old argument “Why would anyone need a mobile phone?” when it was easy enough to find phone boxes everywhere. Or who in their right mind would regularly use SMS? And another point here is whether consumer or business will drive video chat. John Chambers at Cisco argues that email will die at against video chat and he intends to implement that at Cisco. Obviously they have a vested interest: but consider how difficult writing is for some people. Personally I feel video chat is inevitable but the question is: Can iPhone4 be the tipping point? Certainly Apple is well-placed to make it happen.
Hi guys,
I’ll have to disagree. We see that today Skype represents 13% of international calls and between 34% and 50% (at peak, cf http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/05/opening_up_vp8.html) are using video. Skype also has stats saying that video calls last longer than audio calls on average. If people use it, and stay on a video call for longer than an ausio call, there has to be a good reason.
I am a big Skype user and video definitely adds value, in my opinion, to the communication experience. I think that UIs and cost have been the blocker for 3G calling.
Mobile applications have been around since Symbian started and it never took off because of bad user interfaces, Apple changed it so let’s hope they make mobile video calling a reality also….and if they don’t then I am sure that Skype, Fring or Truphone will find a good way to use that front camera !
@yossi on a desktop, I can agree. But I still think there are lots of limits that will prevent videocalls to take off on mobile phones, regardless of the quality.
@romain again, desktop is a totally different story and user interfaces are not really a problem. On 3G, I used to click on the “green button” to make a video call, nothing special, and quality was always high enough.
@bob both mobile phones and SMS took very little to take off. We are talking about 3G video calls since 2001…
Hi Luca,
I appreciate the contrarian view but I don’t agree with the premise. Skype video calling solves a huge problem for most consumers and people love it and use it a lot. The question of whether video conferencing solves a problem or whether people will actually use it / like it I think has been put to bed by the massive adoption of video chat for consumers and telepresence for business users. We just had to make the quality good enough and user experience easy enough to use.
Apple (and probably HTC, Motorola and others) I think will finally make mobile video conferencing take off because:
* it’s even easier than using a webcam. no devices to configure, software to download etc.
* the quality is finally good enough with an a4 processor, near-HD resolution screen, and WiFi bandwidth
* tens of millions of new iphone4 users out there
I can’t wait to use this with my wife and kids and maybe even would drive my tech-phobic parents to upgrade to iphones. And the millions who tried to buy the iphone yesterday are clearly showing: they want this and they want it now.
We’ll see in a few months but I’m not betting against Apple anytime soon.
Scott
Luca, on one level I agree with you completely. We do not “need” to communicate with video, but it does sometimes add another useful (or pleasant) dimension, and I see services like Skype and Oovoo steadily bringing video calling more and more onto the agenda. Looking at the ways that my children use video communication, I think the generation of decision makers in 10-15 years’ time will probably have an entirely different feeling for how video can be used. For example, teenagers seem to have video on all the time (e.g. with MSN) when they are in chat sessions, i.e. just giving a feeling of presence and engagement. Socially, those of use that grew up before video communication came along still feel awkward using video (like you say, I don’t always want people to see me), but people will change in their attitudes.
3G video has not been a great success in most places you can point to, but the service is still widely available if people want to use it. Largely US-built smartphones (Apple, BlackBerry etc) are missing 3G video, and I’m sure this is chicken-and-egg, because the services were never rolled out in the USA in the first place. Some cellcos have allowed greed to spoil the potential by tariffing video calls so that no-one dares to use it. Add to that the possibility of roaming charges on top, and you can kill a service quite easily.
So I’m happy to see Apple promoting some kind of video calling, and I hope that their incredible marketing machine can educate the customers and create some excitement, in the way that they did for appstores. Although it’s a shame they went for their own proprietary technology rather than backing existing standards, I think the idea of video calling is not dead yet.
Martyn, Scott,
I definitely agree with your points, but there are a few reasons why I still believe mobile video calls will struggle to take off (again, mobile).
In Italy, we come from 10 years of 3G video calling that has been a total failure. Not because of the lack of terminals, not because of the bad quality (it was good enough, IMHO), not because of the lack of TV ads (and more) promoting it, but because of the difficulty of changing people behavior when using a mobile phone. There a lot more reasons not to use it than the opposite.
The number of use cases is very limited and, in the past, Telecom Italia also promoted video call from a landline phone, another failure.
I think it will be difficult to make most people widely adopt video calls on a mobile device, but I think companies (providers and suppliers of video-enabled mobile phones) should focus (initially, at least) on those uses cases rather than try to change ppl’s behavior.
Mobile video calling undoubtedly demonstrates separate use cases to ‘fixed’ video calling (live video-blogging in disaster areas, quick call to a colleague in another area of the shop to discuss a product design, AR server processing, …). Many of these are today unpopular uses, but Apple proves to be a great machine in creating market demand.
Mobile video calling requires a number of pieces to work together to allow the user to enjoy the experience:
- cheap, ubiquitous broadband (either by cheaper and more widespread 3G with cell-cos, or through WiFi and WiMAX), users will not pay more for it, but revenue can be more easily attained through advertising than via voice… also people need to become accustomed to a level of service which makes it simple to use
- accessible / patent-free video codecs, allowing everyone around the world to innovate on the platform, and possibly even have service interoperability
- good quality video, not today’s 3G standard
Apple introducing Facetime is a great step towards these goals above. The answer on whether ‘mobile’ video calling will take off, is just a question of who will drive it forward, and when.
All the pieces you mentioned make sense, the problem is whether people will get to that point or not. Apple is great in creating demand, but I think there is a limit to that. Curious to see the numbers of Facetime so far…
Yes, it is difficult for people to find value in person-to-person videocall on the mobile.
But: video integrated with business, mobile-to-cloud improves efficiencies and reduces costs in many use cases, vertical sectors (e.g. reporting live from a construction site; recording before/after state for later auditing; remote monitoring; etc.), especially if integrated with ERP and CRM, e.g. using APIs.
And: definitively there is a lot of people interested in mobile-to-web video, a-la Qik (or Solaiemes). Real time publication or real-time upload to your favourite social net is a favourite for many people.
As Martin says, many feature phones can do this out-of-the-box (even in the US, using AT&T videoshare).
So, there is definitively a market for video calls.
Apple move has at least put videocall again as something not to be ashamed of. Just months ago your interlocutors thought it was disgusting to talk about mobile videocall