

It’s Face Time: Google Talk For Android Phones Gets Video Chat Support - cmeiklejohn
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/28/its-face-time-google-talk-for-android-phones-gets-video-chat-support/

======
FiddlerClamp
Is there a technical reason why Google has to push out a new variant of
Android (2.3+) instead of making the app/service available as an APK?

------
nnutter
Yet another reason if you get an Android phone you shouldn't get anything but
a Nexus.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
According to the article, it will shortly be rolling out to all other 2.3
phones. The Nexus S is getting it first, but not exclusively.

~~~
Xuzz
This will probably come off as snarky, but besides the Nexus series, what
other phones are there running 2.3 at this point?

~~~
CrazedGeek
Any phone running CyanogenMod 7 and the Xperia Play, at the very least.

------
docgnome
Maybe I'm just dumb, but I don't really understand why video chat on a phone
is a big deal. Most of the time when I'm on the phone, I'm walking around
town, or what have you. The rest I'm already sitting at my desk in front of my
computer. I'd think if I video chatted and tried to walk around I'd just end
up hurting myself, and if I sat down, I'd rather be on my computer with a
larger screen...

~~~
theBobMcCormick
Different use cases for different people. I'd love to have video chat on my
phone for when I travel for work. It'd be great to video chat with my kids
while I'm away. We could do that with our laptop, but that'd require me to be
in my hotel room, with my lap. Then I'd have to call my wife, have her dig out
her laptop.. etc. Basically it's enough of a pain that we never do it, we just
have plain old fashioned voice calls.

But, if video chat was integrated into our phones (and particularly if it
wasn't restricted to wifi only like FaceTime), then video chat would be as
easy and frictionless as voice calls. I think I'd probably use it a lot under
those conditions.

------
macrael
Anyone know how Google Talk's video chat works compared to Apple's FaceTime?
Is there a reason everyone can't agree on a standard?

~~~
car
_Anyone know how Google Talk's video chat works compared to Apple's FaceTime?_

Google: Jingle (created at Google), an extension of Jabber/XMPP for signaling,
RTP for media, H.264 video, GIPS (acquired by Google) audio

Apple: SIP/STUN/TURN/BuzzwordBingo for signaling/NAT traversal, RTP for media,
H.264 video, AAC audio

 _Is there a reason everyone can't agree on a standard?_

a) Google: not-invented-here-syndrome

b) Apple: massive lock-in

c) Skype: see Apple

~~~
nl
_> Is there a reason everyone can't agree on a standard? a) Google: not-
invented-here-syndrome_

To be fair, I'm not aware of _any_ standard that existed when Google first
released Google Talk video/voice. It is pretty strongly standards-based,
though, and uses appropriate extension points in standard protocols (Jingle on
XMPP).

~~~
car
Bit of a history here, but SIP had been around for a couple of years when
Google Talk was released.

I spoke to Chris Sacca, who was part of the Google Talk team (if I'm not
mistaken) at Startup School a couple of years ago, and he told me that the
'SIP gateways' would be coming online shortly. This must have been in 06/07'.

If memory serves well, the reasons why Google didn't go with SIP at the time
had to do with federation and trust between different SIP domains. So it was
mostly security and anti-SPAM related. They were meaning to do the right thing
- i.e. being open - but found that SIP could not serve their needs.

