Super-sharp screens. 1-GHz processors. HDMI output. Today’s smart phones have a lot in common with laptops, but the most intriguing addition is staring you right in the face. The
HTC Evo 4G,
iPhone 4, and
Samsung Epic 4G are among some of the first superphones equipped with cameras on the front, which are designed to enable two-way video calls. Although it’s a niche activity now, video calling promises to be huge within the next few years. Think about watching your niece’s graduation from across the country, or virtually seeing the Grand Canyon through your son’s eyes (and phone)—these are just some of the ways video calling will soon be used.
One service leading this new trend is Qik, which provides live
video streaming and video chat from mobile devices. The video chat service made its debut earlier this year on the HTC Evo 4G, and will be available on more Android phones this fall. Bhasker Roy, cofounder and vice president of product marketing for Qik, says people on vacation have been among the first users. “[If] someone is traveling, they want to share something and have a video chat with their family members,” he said.
Alfred Poor, senior analyst at NanoMarkets, recently estimated that 3.2 million people will have the capability for mobile video chats by the end of 2010, and that by 2015 142 million people will be ringing up their friends for a video conversation. While this may seem like a lofty projection, video calling has been in the works for a very long time.
The first consumer-use video phone, AT&T’s Bell Labs Picturephone, made its debut more than 40 years ago at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. Sadly, the technology never caught on, in part due to the bulky equipment, high cost, and special wiring it required. The technology has since evolved to the point where many businesses conduct
video conference calls via telepresence today. Likewise, today’s consumer video chats mostly involve sitting in front of your computer and visually chatting using Google Talk, iChat,
Skype, or other instant messaging services. “The problem with the video phone was that you had to have the device at both ends, and that was an expensive proposition,” said Poor. “What happened between then and now is that lots of people got the hardware they needed, so all Skype had to do was come along and give them the software.”
Now new software and hardware have made mobile video calling a reality. However, just because the technology is there doesn’t mean that people will use it. And even if they do, will the experience be satisfying enough for the masses?
User Experience is Key
According to Michael Gartenberg, partner and analyst at the Altimeter Group, mobile video chat will be widely adopted in the U.S. if the client is simple to use and provides a good overall experience. Although Apple’s FaceTime is currently limited to Wi-Fi only, he feels that this constraint allows for better performance. Combined with the popularity of the iPhone 4, he believes that as a person’s network of friends who also own FaceTime–capable iPhones grows, video chat will become more common.
Services such as Fring are also enabling smart phone owners to conduct two-way video calls. At first, users were able to dial Skype numbers on the desktop. However, that relationship recently fell apart, presumably because Skype is gearing up to offer its own service. Still, Fring members can easily chat with each other.
Although Apple is concentrating on mobile devices for now, it’s highly likely that FaceTime will eventually make its way to the desktop. “Maybe someone builds a PC application so that if you’re a FaceTime user on
your iPhone, you can connect with someone on a PC or a Macintosh,” said Gartenberg. “It isn’t necessarily going to just be mobile vendors who are looking at this. It may be someone who [finds] an entirely different application.”
Although Fring and Qik can do video chats over 3G, the user experience isn’t always the most stable. Pictures can be blurry, and audio might be out of sync with the video. That’s why Apple’s FaceTime is only available over Wi-Fi; this constraint allows the picture to come through in a higher quality. Gartenberg believes that providing the best user experience possible is more important than where you can make calls from. “What you don’t want is 3G calls made from here to Skype, but with jittery or buggy user experiences,“ he said. “Whereas if you’ve talked to people who have used FaceTime [over Wi-Fi], most have had a pretty good experience. And over time those constraints will go by the wayside.”
On the one hand, Qik’s Roy doesn’t believe the lack of widespread 4G networks will hinder the growth of mobile video calling, in part because Qik’s live video streaming service has run on 2G and 3G networks. While that’s not as intensive as two-way mobile chat, he notes that in the first months of the HTC Evo 4G’s release, they saw most users relying on 3G because 4G is not yet prevalent all over the U.S. “I don’t think the 3G network is that big of a limitation,” he said. “One element of that could be the way we have built the technology.”
On the other hand, NanoMarkets’ Poor feels that high expectations may result in mobile video not living up to its promise. “I think there’s a real danger of raising expectations too high on the mobile front,” he said. “People may expect to do [video calls] wirelessly anywhere and not understand that they’re limited.” Initially they could be disappointed and discouraged if it’s over-hyped, but there’s definitely real potential.
Social Implications
So what will it look like when everyone is holding their smart phones at arm’s length and waving wildly at their screen? Marc A. Smith, PhD, chief social scientist for the Connected Action Consulting Group, isn’t so sure that consumers will want to risk looking dorky while walking down the street conducting a video chat. Combine that with the general issue of distraction that occurs now with people walking and texting, and it doesn’t seem like a great proposition. It’s more likely that users will make video calls while in one location, whether it’s Times Square or a living room.
However, video chat has a serious leg up on traditional phone calls when it comes to paying attention. “Video demands almost fully immersed engagement in order to use it effectively, [otherwise] it becomes a channel in which the lack of immersion is very, very visible,” said Dr. Smith. “In other words, if I don’t have my eyes focused on the camera, it’s obvious that I’m looking away. So, video imposes this enormous additional burden in terms of performance attention that the audio-only channel does not demand. I think [when video is] available and everyone can use it, we’ll suddenly realize that we don’t want it for a lot of different things.”
At the same time, live video provides a “you are there” experience that, when it’s good, is second to actually being there. The quality has as much to do with who’s holding the camera as it does with the technology working correctly. Anyone who’s suffered through Uncle Rodney’s home video of a 4-hour walking tour through Mayan ruins knows that every step and stumble results in a bouncy, jerky video that makes it an unpleasant experience for the viewer. This is something that mobile video callers will need to keep in mind. Dr. Smith goes so far as to suggest that phone video chats come with a label that says, “You should sit down now” as a prevention against distracted walking that could result in injury as well as bad video.
While it’s possible that mobile video calls may alter trust in interpersonal and
office relationships, Smith doesn’t believe the technology differs that much from location-based services. “What happens when you’re in physical locations that you don’t really want to share with your work party?” he asked. “This isn’t entirely bound to the video. If you use Foursquare or any of the other check-in services, workplaces might want to know where your are; should they see a five-hour-old check-in, they might think evilly [of your activities].”
The Future
As phones with front-facing cameras and mobile video calling apps become more common, it’s quite likely that you’ll eventually become a video chat partner. However, getting the cameras right is not enough; the software needs to be dead simple to use, and the service has to work.
Altimeter Group’s Gartenberg predicts that video calling will go mainstream in about 18 months. “If you consider that we first saw video phones introduced in the ‘60s at the World’s Fair, people have been waiting for this,” he said. “But they’ve been waiting for the simplicity. It’s the ubiquitous nature of FaceTime that makes it work. We’ll start seeing it as a mainstream activity as the networks become more robust and as the applications continue to mature.”
Here’s how we set up the phones before we tested them:
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