“Not every new feature of the iPhone is a major shift, many are just refinements of what have come before,” Matthew Panzarino writes for TNW. “But some few definitely are and I think that the iPhone is poised to gain another hugely disruptive feature: high definition audio.”
“One of the most disruptive additions to iOS was iMessage, a cross-device messaging service that integrates seamlessly with the standard Messages app on iPhones, iPods and iPads. iMessage has insane potential to upset the balance of power when it comes to text messaging and the carriers know it,” Panzarino writes. “Because iMessage is mostly seamless, users of iOS 5 have begun sending thousands of text messages completely for free, and many of them don’t even know it.”
“If Apple were to introduce high definition audio streaming (something along the lines of Skype’s SILK technology, but perhaps built with ALAC) to all iDevices, it could bring down the hammer on carrier plans overnight,” Panzarino writes. “Imagine firing up the Phone.app from your device’s springboard and making a call. If your phone detects that the other device is running iOS, then it automatically switches seamlessly to an HD audio call using your data connection and not your minutes. Lets call it VoiceTime.”
Panzarino writes, “This kind of system would allow Apple to deliver insanely crisp audio calls, something that almost no other smartphone does, especially on AT&T. At the same time, it would sidestep the carrier’s voice plans almost entirely in a clever passive-aggressive way, much like iMessage did.”
Much more in the full article here.