The iPhone 4 is out and while mobile and tech gadget gurus will analyze its features, this 2-minute video describing the “Facetime” feature deserves the Oscar. The video pulls all the right heartstrings and makes the case for why you just have to buy your grandparents one of these NOW. From the Apple website:
People have been dreaming about video calling for decades. iPhone 4 makes it a reality.
For thirty seconds, we have a predictable application–Dad away on a business trip in his hotel room alone. He watches baby crawl then Mom and the kids laughing and playing. Life is so good it’s like you don’t even have to really be there.
Then we move on to the grandparents watching daughter and granddaughter prepare for graduation. A different daughter away at college shows Mom (or older friend?) her new clothes…but then Apple really pulls out all the stops…
A pregnant woman talks to her serviceman husband…and shares the sonogram. She switches to the second camera so he can see the baby on the monitor. He is so overcome with emotion…they start signing each other. It’s a beautiful mini-opera of empathic consumerism.
I’m not being cynical or facetious…well, not entirely. I’ve hooked up my iPhone with Ustream and called my mom to show her the kids on Christmas morning. It would be cool if it were so easy and if we could get her hooked up with Skype or something to do a 2-way video call. But there are a couple of practical issues.
One is the wifi–this Facetime feature only works between two iPhone 4s that are on a wifi network. It is not transmitting the video over the cellular network; you need access to an open wifi network that doesn’t mind you video streaming on their bandwidth. If you are at home, no problem, but it’s not quite a no-brainer.
Two is just the fact that everyone has to have an iPhone. That must be why Dad is working all the time and sitting in that hotel room watching his baby crawl via the iPhone parental link.
But it is cool stuff; you just can’t deny it. The video chat will not replace or patch relationships any more than friending your relatives on Facebook. But it fills an undeniable need. The advertising is perfect to offer a solution that is far more enticing than just the gadgetry. We dream about the Star Trek communicators and transporter beams not because we want to go where no one has gone before, but because we want to be where we should have been all along.
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