“There is nothing new about video chatting on computers, where people commonly use Skype and other services to keep in touch visually. But the function is just getting started on mobile phones, at least in the U.S.,” Walter S. Mossberg reports for AllThingsD. “The biggest name so far pushing mobile video calling is Apple, which has introduced front-facing cameras and a free video calling service called FaceTime into its latest iPhones and iPod Touch models.”
“But a number of smaller companies are scrambling to provide free video calling between mobile phones, and this week I’ve been testing a new entry that aims to be more versatile, and almost as simple, as FaceTime. It’s called Tango, and comes from a year-old Silicon Valley start-up of the same name. Tango launches on Thursday. To use it, you download a free app from either Apple’s app store or the Android Market,” Mossberg reports. “In my tests, Tango worked as promised, and was simple to use. But the quality of its video calls was uneven, and only a few of my calls matched my best experiences with FaceTime, which, while hardly perfect, was better. “
Mossberg via Fox Business:
Direct link to video here.
Mossberg reports, “Tango isn’t as effortless as FaceTime on the iPhone 4, which is integrated right into the phone’s normal calling functions and contacts list, because it’s built by the phone’s maker… While Tango has potential, it needs some work if it is to be a big player in what I suspect will be a big, new use of smartphones.”
Full article, with Mossberg’s video report, here.
MacDailyNews Take: Third parties should concentrate their efforts elsewhere. FaceTime, via the sheer momentum of millions upon millions of iPhones, iPod touches, and, presumably sooner than later, iPads and Macs, will be the video calling standard. Not random company X’s kludge. FaceTime video and audio is already strong, clear, and drop dead simple to use; it will only get better as it becomes much more widespread. There’s no need for anyone to spin their wheels on reinventing this particular wheel, especially since FaceTime is based on extensive use of open technical standards and Apple intends to make FaceTime an open industry standard.
who says Tango cannot adapt to be compatible to apple’s open standard when it comes out?
First off my wife has her own mind and finances and she can purchase whatever she wanys, and two I like her phone and I love the Android platform that’s why I have purchased an Android also. Third tell me something besides phone resolution that makes the iPhone better than any of the new phones? They’re all the same but you have more flexibility with the Android platform. But to each his own.
First off my wife has her own mind and finances and she can purchase whatever she wanys, and two I like her phone and I love the Android platform that’s why I have purchased an Android also. Third tell me something besides phone resolution that makes the iPhone better than any of the new phones? They’re all the same but you have more flexibility with the Android platform. But to each his own.
The other things the only reason that apple has even decided to let face time become an open platform is because developers started creating platforms that would allow people to have choice of they’re phones.
The other things the only reason that apple has even decided to let face time become an open platform is because developers started creating platforms that would allow people to have choice of they’re phones.
“Competitors keep Apple from getting fat & lazy. Nothing sharpens skills like competition”
Lame and tired argument that’s way over used. I can’t imagine; not even if I try real hard, I can’t imagine Apple; nor Steve Jobs caring what any other company is doing or thinking. Apple is way too busy improving on what they have already done to bother caring what any so called “competition” is doing.
“Competitors keep Apple from getting fat & lazy. Nothing sharpens skills like competition”
Lame and tired argument that’s way over used. I can’t imagine; not even if I try real hard, I can’t imagine Apple; nor Steve Jobs caring what any other company is doing or thinking. Apple is way too busy improving on what they have already done to bother caring what any so called “competition” is doing.
ThinkBig,
There are many reasons why Apple’s customer satisfaction leads, and the No. 2 is always much behind. One of the primary reasons, however, is that their products are in fact better than competitors’.
…”tell me something besides phone resolution that makes the iPhone better than any of the new phones? They’re all the same but you have more flexibility with the Android platform”
Of course, to each his own, but that statement is very, very skewed. There is only one iPhone. There are currently about twenty Android phones in the US alone. However, no matter which one of them you buy, you’ll end up hobbled by the restrictions put up by your carrier. As we all know, Verizon is the undisputed world champion in nickle-and-diming customers and crippling phone fitures. Other carriers are somewhat better, but still very much controlling. People who buy into ‘Android experience’ are experiencing very different things, depending on who is their carrier. People who buy an iPhone experience will have identical experience in Canada, Burkina Faso, Vietnam, Moldova, Portugal… you get the picture.
The flexibility of Android platform is very quickly tested by the limitations imposed by carriers. Apple’s “walled garden” is so big that none of their customers ever realise that there are walls there. The minuscule minority that may occasionally hit a wall can choose an Android and figure out how to battle its own set of walls.
ThinkBig,
There are many reasons why Apple’s customer satisfaction leads, and the No. 2 is always much behind. One of the primary reasons, however, is that their products are in fact better than competitors’.
…”tell me something besides phone resolution that makes the iPhone better than any of the new phones? They’re all the same but you have more flexibility with the Android platform”
Of course, to each his own, but that statement is very, very skewed. There is only one iPhone. There are currently about twenty Android phones in the US alone. However, no matter which one of them you buy, you’ll end up hobbled by the restrictions put up by your carrier. As we all know, Verizon is the undisputed world champion in nickle-and-diming customers and crippling phone fitures. Other carriers are somewhat better, but still very much controlling. People who buy into ‘Android experience’ are experiencing very different things, depending on who is their carrier. People who buy an iPhone experience will have identical experience in Canada, Burkina Faso, Vietnam, Moldova, Portugal… you get the picture.
The flexibility of Android platform is very quickly tested by the limitations imposed by carriers. Apple’s “walled garden” is so big that none of their customers ever realise that there are walls there. The minuscule minority that may occasionally hit a wall can choose an Android and figure out how to battle its own set of walls.
Apple Needs to add FaceTime support to iChat on the Mac. 30 million + Mac users would jump right in.
Apple Needs to add FaceTime support to iChat on the Mac. 30 million + Mac users would jump right in.
Oh please don’t be so freaking arrogant. There is no reason to believe someone can’t do a better job than Apple at this type of technology.
Oh please don’t be so freaking arrogant. There is no reason to believe someone can’t do a better job than Apple at this type of technology.
“Oh please don’t be so freaking arrogant. There is no reason to believe someone can’t do a better job than Apple at this type of technology.”
ivid,
It’s apparently hard to do, since no one has done it. It’s not about just being able to do video chat, it’s how hard it is for the end user to use it (user interface). UI seems to be a completely lost art to nearly everyone besides Apple. They seem to be the only company that really cares about it.
” Third tell me something besides phone resolution that makes the iPhone better than any of the new phones? They’re all the same but you have more flexibility with the Android platform. But to each his own.”
thinkbig,
Wow, I don’t really know how to respond to that. Clearly you have very different priorities than I do as far as what makes a good technology product. In short I’d say “spec sheet” tells you little about what a product does, the most important “spec sheet” is the one when you get in front of the product and actually use it. Android in use is far less elegant and refined than iOS. It’s designed by engineering geeks at Google without a clue as to what UI is, they have very little taste, it’s attached to an atrocious me-too store filled with spyware that tracks you without your knowledge or consent, created by a spy advertising company that masquerades as a search company. The difference is vast, both in terms of use, the purpose for the product, and the implementation.
The store is a mess, most of the software is spyware junk, without any meaningful supervision. Even wallpaper software on Google’s platform has sent personal data to Chinese servers.
This is of course completely ignoring the vast amount of patent infringements that went into creating Android that are likely to see the entire platform come to a crashing meltdown in the next few years, that’s assuming all the malware doesn’t eat it up first.
I hope you are at least running current anti-malware software for your phone?
FaceTime isn’t perfect but it’s vastly better than what else is out there and is likely to rapidly become THE de facto standard for all video conferencing in the next few years. Mark my words. iPhone isn’t perfect but it’s enormously better than any Android phone.
“Oh please don’t be so freaking arrogant. There is no reason to believe someone can’t do a better job than Apple at this type of technology.”
ivid,
It’s apparently hard to do, since no one has done it. It’s not about just being able to do video chat, it’s how hard it is for the end user to use it (user interface). UI seems to be a completely lost art to nearly everyone besides Apple. They seem to be the only company that really cares about it.
” Third tell me something besides phone resolution that makes the iPhone better than any of the new phones? They’re all the same but you have more flexibility with the Android platform. But to each his own.”
thinkbig,
Wow, I don’t really know how to respond to that. Clearly you have very different priorities than I do as far as what makes a good technology product. In short I’d say “spec sheet” tells you little about what a product does, the most important “spec sheet” is the one when you get in front of the product and actually use it. Android in use is far less elegant and refined than iOS. It’s designed by engineering geeks at Google without a clue as to what UI is, they have very little taste, it’s attached to an atrocious me-too store filled with spyware that tracks you without your knowledge or consent, created by a spy advertising company that masquerades as a search company. The difference is vast, both in terms of use, the purpose for the product, and the implementation.
The store is a mess, most of the software is spyware junk, without any meaningful supervision. Even wallpaper software on Google’s platform has sent personal data to Chinese servers.
This is of course completely ignoring the vast amount of patent infringements that went into creating Android that are likely to see the entire platform come to a crashing meltdown in the next few years, that’s assuming all the malware doesn’t eat it up first.
I hope you are at least running current anti-malware software for your phone?
FaceTime isn’t perfect but it’s vastly better than what else is out there and is likely to rapidly become THE de facto standard for all video conferencing in the next few years. Mark my words. iPhone isn’t perfect but it’s enormously better than any Android phone.
@thinkbig
“Third tell me something besides phone resolution that makes the iPhone better than any of the new phones?” phone resolution? The only resolution here is that if you have to ask such question you won’t understand anyway.
@thinkbig
“Third tell me something besides phone resolution that makes the iPhone better than any of the new phones?” phone resolution? The only resolution here is that if you have to ask such question you won’t understand anyway.
I wonder why Apple is delaying releasing Facetime for OSX. I have an iMac sitting on my desk that I’d love to be able to Facetime with.
I wonder why Apple is delaying releasing Facetime for OSX. I have an iMac sitting on my desk that I’d love to be able to Facetime with.
Open industry standard? So, if Samsung or whomever starts to put facetime on their android phones, apple won’t try to block it? Really?I thought apple put this feature on iphone and ipod touches so it would….wait for it…..sell more iphones and ipod touches. What possible incentive would it have to let someone else steal their thunder? Or outright give it to them?
Don’t get me wrong, an open standard would be a big win for consumers. One of the reasons I’m so ‘meh’ about facetime is that it can only be used with owners of the latest iphones and itouches. Opening it up to work with macs via ichat or android phones, theoretically a lot more people, would make it much more attractive. I’m just trying to see what apple would get out of that; maybe ads on android phones informing their users that the app works a lot better on an iphone or itouch. Maybe they’d sell facetime on the android store.
If apple opens facetime up and lets it be sold or used on more phones with less effort, it deserves to bury tango. OTOH, if I could reach more folks with Tango, I’d download it on an iDevice….assuming apple doesn’t block it from the app store.
Open industry standard? So, if Samsung or whomever starts to put facetime on their android phones, apple won’t try to block it? Really?I thought apple put this feature on iphone and ipod touches so it would….wait for it…..sell more iphones and ipod touches. What possible incentive would it have to let someone else steal their thunder? Or outright give it to them?
Don’t get me wrong, an open standard would be a big win for consumers. One of the reasons I’m so ‘meh’ about facetime is that it can only be used with owners of the latest iphones and itouches. Opening it up to work with macs via ichat or android phones, theoretically a lot more people, would make it much more attractive. I’m just trying to see what apple would get out of that; maybe ads on android phones informing their users that the app works a lot better on an iphone or itouch. Maybe they’d sell facetime on the android store.
If apple opens facetime up and lets it be sold or used on more phones with less effort, it deserves to bury tango. OTOH, if I could reach more folks with Tango, I’d download it on an iDevice….assuming apple doesn’t block it from the app store.
@clyde2801:
The standard is open. Facetime is not the standard. It is an application built on the standard. So no, they probably can’t put Facetime on their phones. And they would benefit greatly by making the standard ubiquitous. It almost always helps when everyone when this is done. Like standards in video, or telecommunications, or data transfer (think USB). Everyone is afforded the opportunity to make something of it. It now would just come down to who can utilize it better. And in that respect, I think Steve and Co. are very, VERY confident that they can hold their own.
@clyde2801:
The standard is open. Facetime is not the standard. It is an application built on the standard. So no, they probably can’t put Facetime on their phones. And they would benefit greatly by making the standard ubiquitous. It almost always helps when everyone when this is done. Like standards in video, or telecommunications, or data transfer (think USB). Everyone is afforded the opportunity to make something of it. It now would just come down to who can utilize it better. And in that respect, I think Steve and Co. are very, VERY confident that they can hold their own.
Having used both FaceTime and Tango, I can tell you that FaceTime’s video quality over wifi is far superior, but Tango has some significant advantages.
The most important is there’s an automatically populated list of people who also have Tango on their device. I don’t have to go into my contacts and hope that the person I’m calling has it.
If FaceTime did this, it’d be great. But, as it stands, Tango is useful right now. Certainly until FaceTime truly becomes open, Tango stays on my phone.
Having used both FaceTime and Tango, I can tell you that FaceTime’s video quality over wifi is far superior, but Tango has some significant advantages.
The most important is there’s an automatically populated list of people who also have Tango on their device. I don’t have to go into my contacts and hope that the person I’m calling has it.
If FaceTime did this, it’d be great. But, as it stands, Tango is useful right now. Certainly until FaceTime truly becomes open, Tango stays on my phone.