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[Updates with iTunes customer reaction, in brackets below.]
Fring, the first to offer an iPhone app that allowed users to make calls using the internet instead of their precious cell minutes, just rolled out another iPhone first: a video calling feature in a new release of the app recently approved by the Apple App Store.
But unlike the Nokia smartphone version — which takes advantage of a camera located on the same side as the viewing screen — it's a one-way mirror on the iPhone: You can see the person on the other end of a Skype or Google Talk call, but they can't see you. This is great for what I imagine could be a sizable demographic that would rather not pretty up just to answer the phone, but are fine with seeing the other caller, however oddly voyeuristic that sounds.
The big market for mobile VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) video calls are companies big and small that use video conferencing to connect collaborating employees dispersed over space and time (as well as non-battling siblings and relatives eager to remain in grandma's will). And since the mobile internet will have to replicate everything the tethered internet has conditioned us to expect, moving this along is a big deal.
Fring is not only aware of the shortcoming in the iPhone offering but seems to be using it to challenge Apple to, er, catch up — chicken-and-egg style. It's quite a gambit: Tilting at this particular windmill would require a dramatic design change for the iPhone, which in three iterations has remained essentially unchanged on the outside while both the hardware and software have steadily improved.
So, part of putting the cart before the horse on purpose is to risk going public with what amounts to a novelty that Fring hopes will create a groundswell for change rather than turn people off.
[Based on early reaction at the iTunes store, not everyone realizes that the video is one-way: five of the seven reviews (at 5:35 pm EST) complain of a video problem, and only one notes that the product description clearly states that it is one-way.]
Asked about the one-way nature of the video, Fring Marketing Communication Manager told wired.com: "This will be overcome when the iPhone has a camera on the front."
"Fring is actually the first application to enable any kind of video calls over VOIP on the iPhone," said Regev in an e-mail. "Hopefully this will create a demand for video conferencing big enough to convince Apple to add in that front-end camera, which is a pretty common feature on most smartphones these days."
Fring was already a pretty nifty iPhone app, aggregating chat and VOIP services and beating Skype itself to the punch by a year. But we are still a ways from mobile VOIP nirvana for one big reason aside from the iPhone's camera location: You still need to be in a WiFi hotspot to use any VOIP app on an unjailbroken iPhone, even though they would work perfectly fine on AT&T's 3G data network.
Enabling non-WiFi VOIP calling is one thing — redesigning the iconic iPhone to accommodate third-party software is another. Personally, we can't imagine how Apple could incorporate a camera on the front of the iPhone. But, like Fring, we don't think that's our problem, either.
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