Yahoo Messenger app looks to challenge Apple’s FaceTime on iPhone

“Apple has based a great deal of its iPhone 4 marketing blitz around its so-called FaceTime video calling technology,” Alexei Oreskovic reports for Reuters. “But Yahoo is about to challenge Apple for the mobile video calling crown, with plans to brings video chat to iPhones and Android-based phones via its popular Yahoo Messenger instant messaging service.”

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“The free app, will be available for both iPhone and Android phones and will allow smartphone users to not only conduct video calls with each other, but with anyone that currently uses Yahoo Messenger for video calls on their PCs, Katz said (Messenger has 81 million users worldwide, according to Yahoo),” Oreskovic reports. “And unlike FaceTime, Yahoo’s mobile Messenger video calling app will work not only over a WiFi connection, but over a carrier’s standard wireless network.”

Oreskovic reports, “A Yahoo spokesperson clarified that the iPhone app has not yet been approved. Apple said in a statement: ‘We do allow apps on the App Store that support video calling on WiFi and 3G networks.'”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Good luck with your quest, Yahoo. (smirk) Some people need to relax. Apple’s FaceTime is just getting started. Once the AT&T roadblock is circumvented in the U.S., a lot of things are going to change.