iPhone can now finally come up with video chat after recent research developments. Earlier ‘iChatAgent’ was found running on iPhone 4.0. Fring was the first application to bring video chat to the iPhone. iChat is Apple’s instant message client for Mac OS X that includes voice and video chat, among other features. But the demerit also followed. Due to the lack of a front camera, you were stuck only being able to receive the video feed.
Weeks back, Fring has also released a proper, two way application for the Nokia Symbian S60. The Fring app is meant to talk happily with Fring contacts and Skype, so you should be able to get video feeds of people with desktop clients, which is an important feature, and one we’re surprised that Skype hasn’t rolled out on their own.
Now with the release of new iPhone OS, people have been tearing apart the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK from the very second it was available. Almost immediately, someone noticed that bits and pieces of iChat had found their way into the new software. The iPhone has plenty of unbelievably solid third-party IM applications, some of them being amongst the App Store’s best sellers. Why Apple would be niggling any parts of iChat onto the iPhone. Then the first mentions of a front facing camera were unearthed, and it all started coming together in the form of two little words: video chat. Certain techniques were invented, used and improved to explore the innards of the new SDK, it all came spilling out, references to video chatting, ranging from inviting users to terminating calls.
More innovation unveiled that Apple appears to be testing video chat on four servers: three privately located on Apple’s own intranet, and one which is currently open to the world. According to sources, iChat, as an IM client that would compete with the third party apps, is coming to the iPhone but that Apple will be using bits and pieces of the iChat core to power their video chat service. But still no note of confirmation has been received and we have to wait for Apple to comment on this.
Tags: chat service, desktop clients, Iphone, iphone 4, mac os x, message client, new software, nokia symbian, party apps, sdk, skype, video chat