Are all iPhone customers fanbois?
AT&T may charge fanbois for FaceTime vid chat, hints iOS 6
Early adopters playing with iOS 6 fear users will have to beg AT&T to let them make FaceTime video calls over the cellular network. An alert box, shown over at MacRumours, pops up and urges fanbois to have a word with the telco if they attempt to make a FaceTime call and Wi-Fi isn't available. The discovery sparked rumours …
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 18:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Not all Apple owners are fanboys, they just often haven't seen anything they like as much in terms of design or ease of use.
Once you've had an Apple laptop everything else looks a bit crap. Often the actual laptops look passable, but then they supply a really ugly black brick PSU. Apple's magsafe adapters are much nicer in terms of design.
As for the iPhone. It's partly about the design but also about ease of use. But my own opinion is that the OS just keeps getting a lick of paint and a few new features. I might have a look at a Windows Phone 8 device when one comes out. Sometimes you just get used to something and want a change.
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 19:28 GMT ItsNotMe
Re: AC @ 18:21 GMT
"Once you've had an Apple laptop everything else looks a bit crap. Often the actual laptops look passable, but then they supply a really ugly black brick PSU. Apple's magsafe adapters are much nicer in terms of design."
Really? Well...you're wrong.
I have both an Intel MacBook Pro and a Dell Studio XPS 16 laptop, and the Dell PSU is HALF the size & weight of the one for the MBP. And the power cord storage on the PSU for the MBP is non-existant, whereas the Dell PSU has a very nice ability to wrap around itself, and be secured with a rubber strap.
And the Dell laptop outperforms the MBP...by a lot.
Back under the bridge.
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 18:50 GMT Droid on Droid
It's clear from the numbers that most iPhone users have to be Windows users, followed by Mac and Linux. In other words, just the same as every other smart phone user, though probably a higher proportion of Mac users. That's a guess, since I only know 1 Mac user.
The whole article is strangely written, I mean how many people know that Skype is owned by Microsoft? and why would they care after all Office on Mac is supposed to be very profitable. The thing that gets me is that if you have paid AT&T for the data plan. Then why does AT&T care if you use FaceTime over it's network, I would have thought that FaceTime would use data fast which just means more cash to AT&T.
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 19:21 GMT Annihilator
Good question
Short answer, no. It's not hard for someone to make a reasoned choice between (let's face it) 2 phone-types without becoming the blithering-foaming-at-the-mouth-idiot they're made out to be. By the same logic, Android users are fanbois.
Me? I use a device I prefer. I don't love one and hate the other, I just prefer one.
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Thursday 19th July 2012 00:40 GMT leexgx
what cida shocked me an little was why facetime could not use mobile data
i am an adroid user so this was new to me was at an customers house and i assumed that you could make 3g calls with facetime as what's the point of the feature if you cant use it when your not at home wifi, at least the next IOS that be Fixed so you can use mobile data, Skype and other voice and video have been happy for some time using mobile data (on 3 UK you got the One Plan so facetime should work over mobile data due to unlimited data)
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 14:20 GMT TheRealRoland
Am not surprised
When using Blackberry Bridge to connect a BBerry phone to the Playbook - if you use the Blackberry Bridge software provided by AT&T, it signals you that you need to pay up to use this functionality.
But if you download and install the same software provided by any other provider, you can bridge as much as you want, free of charge...
So, i switched to another provider.
But guess what? They're just as bad. They're not there for you - you're there for them, to be milked as much as possible, while 'providing' you with the least amount of service that you're willing to live with. So, pick your poison.
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 14:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Premium charge
Apple's facetime will be a premium service and therefore AT&T see the chance of earning mucho $$$ from people who enjoy paying for a premium services.
I guess that to make it work well it hits the network hard, harder than websufing or even streaming video where you can get laggy connections without hitting the QoS. Video calling needs timely packet delivery and can't be buffered up much. So its going to be hard work on the network infrastructure.
Where the performance of Skype isn't too good Joe Public is likely to blame Skype. After all its free.
Where the performance of Apple something isn't perfect, Joe Public is likely to blame the network, since its Apple, it just works... therefore any problems are someone else's problem.
So AT&T see themselves being hit with a big stick without any financial rewards being in the offing.
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Thursday 19th July 2012 08:42 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Premium charge
Shockingly I can use Google talk video on my mobile when on 3g and it works perfectly fine!
Then again I've been able to make video calls over 3G since my first 3G phone about 6 years ago...
I considered getting an iPhone for facetime as my android phone at the time didn't have any decent video chat software (really what took SO long for google to do it?) but without being able to call on 3G, its pointless
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 14:59 GMT Test Man
FaceTime will be 3G-enabled on iOS 6
I think the fuss is more over stateside, where it seems video calling's been a very minor feature that was "here today, gone tomorrow". Here in the UK, video calling has indeed been available for years and is a chargeable feature, although it hasn't really taken off here much. FaceTime, however, is Apple's implementation of video calling but operators will probably want this chargeable also.
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 14:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What's so special?
Not true for all networks and plans, for example O2 UK alays charges 50p/minute for 3G video calls on all PAYG plans, any existing voice bundle is not applicable.
The quality of 3G video calls is also very poor compared to modern protocols and codecs such as those used for Skype or FaceTime.
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 15:28 GMT Dazed and Confused
Re: What's so special?
The problem is that the network operator sells a iPhone contract with an all you can eat unlimited network usage. But they assume that you won't actually use very much. If you start to use your iPhone as a hot spot then you'll probably use more bandwidth than someone who is just using data on the phone itself. So AT&T want more $$$.
Now with FaceTime moving to the 3G network, they are seeing more traffic coming their way and want more $$$ to cope with it.
Same problem as we have over here with ISP selling "unlimited" contracts and then wanting to limit the usage.
Mobile contracts are priced on an assumption of excepted usage. This new facetime option throws the expected usage numbers out the window. So the telco wants to charge for it.
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 14:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Ah, an iOS thread. Oh look, 50% of the comments by Obviously!, who really is not bothered about iPhones. No, really, he has no opinion on any aspect of iPhones, and he is entirely ambivalent about them and doesn't obsess day and night about all the idiots buying iPhones. Someone like that would be a bit strange, eh?
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Thursday 19th July 2012 02:20 GMT Volker Hett
I know a lot of people with iphones and still some with ipads. All of them have Skype on both and Whatsapp on their phones. Nobody uses Facebook. Ok, I tried it once with a friend because I had facetime on my macbook and don't own an iPhone, but that's it. As far as I'm concerned, NOBODY uses Facetime.
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 15:14 GMT Andrew_b65
Re: FaceTime works better than Skype
Yup, for sure. I've seen the Apple adverts on TV and the quality of their iFacetime video calling looks fantastic, on a par with the HD video call quality I get on Skype desktop. iPotato owners must be so pleased with this amazing service. It's magic. One of my kids' friends tried video Skyping him on his iToy over WiFi and the video was shit. So on this evidence, iFacetime is better than Skype video.
Come to think of it, they also tried iFacetime with two iToys and it was still shit. Could the adverts be exaggerating the quality? I dread to think what it would be like over 3G.
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 17:46 GMT johnnymotel
you gotta be kidding?
"They could use Skype, of course, which happily supports video calling over mobile networks, but Skype is owned by Microsoft and that will be enough to prevent most Apple users from considering it."
I ONLY use Skype on my Mac and so do all my friends with Macs or iPhones.
I looked at FaceTime, then I realised it was only for Mac users, immediately forgot about it and went on happily with Skype.
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Wednesday 18th July 2012 20:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
I smell a hissy fit
Given that Apple's iMessage just stuck a knife between the ribs of AT&T's highly lucrative SMS messaging business for iPhone users, it's not surprising that AT&T have decided that they want a taste of any data action.
Personally, I think the carriers are about to experience the same fear and suffering that they inflicted on the landline business a few years ago. The app people are going to eat their lunch and relegate them to mere pipes. Data is king. Either find a way to make money from it or die.