Steve Jobs brought back the “one more thing” bump for FaceTime, Apple’s new iPhone 4 feature that promises no setup, Wi-Fi only, one-on-one video calling. You start a call or choose a contact and you’re video chatting.

We’re curious if you think you’ll be using it? Nokia has had video chat for what seems like a century and half, and the Android-based Evo 3G has it via Qik, but it’s hardly a mainstream phenomena yet. Apple has a history of taking interesting technology and making it usable for the masses, but given the iPhone 4-only, Wi-Fi only restrictions, will the masses embrace it?

Apple has made the protocols behind FaceTime open, so while we hope iChat on Mac gets compatibility ASAP, it’s possible Skype could provide the same functionality, and Nokia, Android, and other platforms could have compatible apps. We could (and should) even — finally — get camera equipped iPads and iPod touches to join in the fun.

Is that enough to make it mainstream?

Let us know what you think about FaceTime. Do you see yourself using? If so, how? And where else do you want to see the FaceTime tech pop up?

Steve Jobs brought back a doozy of a “One more thing…” for his WWDC 2010 keynote today — the awkwardly named but awesome-looking FaceTime video calling for iPhone 4.

Apple says it requires zero setup, works landscape or portrait, front or back camera, and supports h.264, AAC, SIP, STUN. It’s Wi-Fi only in 2010 but they’re working with carriers to support it over 3G in the future.

Update: Video after the break!

[Apple.com FaceTime page]

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Steve Jobs keynoting WWDC 2010, White iPhone HD faceplates, more on iChat video, iPhone vs. Android, $97 iPhone 3GS, how do you push, iPhone at work, SSH tutorial, AT&T locks and etf, Chirpy, Bix, Groupon, and LinkedIn. Listen in!

Credits

Thanks to the TiPb iPhone accessory store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

Could these be shots of iPhone HD/iPhone 4G iChat video call settings screens taken off field test units? Who knows, they don’t look 960×640 to our pixel peepers but with WWDC 2010 and the supposed unveiling only a few weeks away, anything is possible.

So let us know, real, fake, or really fake?

[BGR]

The evidence that iChat video is coming with the 4th generation iPhone continues to pile up with iPhone OS 4 beta 2 released just last week.

More code reveals that the iPhone must be registered for video conferencing along with the possibility of the feature only being used via Wi-Fi and not 3G data. So those who had hoped for video chat using their networks 3G connection may be a bit disappointed.

ACCOUNTNOTREGISTEREDMESSAGE = “This device has not been registered for video conferencing.”;

IMAVCHAT

COULDNOTCONNECTNOREMOTEWIFI = “The video call could not connect because a remote Wi-Fi connection could not be established.”; IMAVCHATDISCONNECTEDNOLOCAL_WIFI = “The video call disconnected because the local Wi-Fi connection was lost.”;

And as an added bonus it seems as if Apple is working on integrating video chat with “tentpole” number 6, Game Center. From the code below it appears that you will be able to initiate video chats with other Game Center users.

IMAVCHATERRORNOSUCHPLAYERID = “No Such Player ID”; IMAVCHATERRORNOSUCHACHIEVEMENT = “No Such Achievement”; IMAVCHATERRORUNRECOGNIZEDGAMEDESCRIPTIONHEADERS = “Unrecognised Game Descriptor Headers”; IMAVCHATERRORNOSUCHGAME = “No Such Game”;

iPhone OS 4 looks to be more promising than we originally had thought. Any of our readers excited just yet?

[Mac Rumors]

Yesterday we looked at the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G design, today we look at what that design embodied — the iPhone HD/iPhone 4G hardware and specs. A lot of what was revealed in the Engadget pics and Gizmodo hands-on seems to confirm past rumors, a lot more still remains a mystery. One thing’s for certain — as much as Apple jumpstarted the smartphone space in 2007 with the original iPhone 2G, the competition has blown past them when it comes to hardware specs to date. That changes in 2010 with the iPhone HD.

We’ll cover the internals, the CPU and GPU, RAM and capacity in a future post, but in terms of what could easily be discerned so far, let’s break it down as follows:

Screen resolution

The original iPhone (and all iPhone models since) sported a 480×320 multitouch display. That display remains the absolute best multitouch screen on the market, bar none, but the resolution has been eclipsed by Android and Windows Phone where 800(+)x480 has become the new norm on the high end. HD2, Droid, Nexus One, Desire, EVO 4G, the list of obscenely large displays on competing platforms seems to be growing monthly. We were wondering (read: hoping) Apple would match that last year, even though we thought it would cause problems for developers (the way it has for Android). Apple didn’t. They kept the iPhone 3GS at the same 480×320. This year we again hoped they’d match it. According to rumors, Apple won’t — they’re going to exceed it.

Gizmodo couldn’t see anything other than the connect-to-iTunes screen, so we don’t know for certain what the actual resolution will be, but they claimed to be unable to see the pictures, but Daring Fireball has said a whopping 960×640 is what’s supposed to be on the iPhone HD (hence the name TiPb predicted back in 2009 and Engadget hears just might be the name in 2010). That’s twice the vertical and twice the horizontal pixel count as all the previous generations of iPhone. It’s also over 300dpi at the physical size Gizmodo showed off. Daring Fireball points out, and our own past experience tells us, that’s past fair quality print resolution, especially for color work. With Apple’s sub-pixel anti-aliasing (where the red, green, and blue components of each pixel can be fired independently), it might just look as good as a high-end glossy magazine, and that would be incredible.

Being twice the current iPhone resolution also ties remarkably well into something Apple announced for the iPad and its larger, if less dense 1024×768 screen — pixel doubling. Every pixel on the iPhone can be doubled to occupy four pixels (2 vertical x 2 horizontal) on the iPhone HD and at 300dpi look pretty much identical. No blurry double-chunky like on the iPad, and no problem for older iPhone apps. No fragmentation. (And when developers update with universal binaries for iPhone, they should look fantastic, and should also work at 1x at the same size as current iPhone apps work at 2x on the iPad). In other words, it solves a lot of problems for Apple and developers.

Front-facing camera

When the iPhone 2G shipped without Mobile iChat it was a source of speculation (conspiracy theorists thinking AT&T didn’t want anything cutting into their lucrative SMS business). Since then there have been persistent rumors that not only was Mobile iChat coming, Mobile iChat video was coming with it. Of course, that would mean a front-facing camera — a webcam or chat-cam. While it didn’t appear on either the iPhone 3G or the iPhone 3GS, it is on the iPhone HD and strings for iChat have been showing up in the software starting in iPhone 3.2 for iPad and continuing into iPhone OS 4 beta 1.

Sprint’s upcoming Android EVO 4G will have a front-facing camera when it ships, and will be working on a fast WiMax connection. Whether or not AT&T, which still faces data issues in some markets, will allow iChat video over their 3G network is unknown. If not, like movie downloads on current iPhones, it could be restricted to Wi-Fi only use, where cell bandwidth is no issue. Perhaps it will be similar to how streaming video is handled today — lower quality of 3G, higher quality over Wi-Fi.

Bigger rear-facing camera

Gizmodo also noted that the camera on the back of the iPhone HD was “bigger”. 5 megapixels would be nice. The new Verizon Droid Incredible has an 8 megapixel camera but if the point-and-shoot wars have taught us anything it’s that pixel size… well, it matters, but it matters less than lens quality. We’d take a great 5 megapixel lens that doesn’t cut up the sensor too much and gives better low-light sensitivity than a bigger, worse camera (ahem, Droid).

We’d also take 720p video recording. The 3GS is good enough for casual use. 720p would replace 90% of our video camera needs as well.

Camera flash

There looks to also be a flash, which would match with rumors of Apple looking for LED flash components. No, it’s not built into a glowing Apple logo, but it’s there.

Many other phones have had this for a long time, and while it wouldn’t excite us as much as a quality low-light lens, we’re not upset to see it.

Secondary mic

In addition to the same mic on the bottom of the device found in all previous iPhones, the iPhone HD looks to have a small mic on the top as well. Gizmodo theorizes that this is like the Nexus One — a noise cancelation mic that reads ambient sound and removes it from the main audio channel making you sound clearer to the person on the other end.

If there’s a top mounted iChat camera, however, could it also serve (or serve double duty) for chat?

Battery

The aluminum band around the iPhone HD is oddly broken at the bottom making it into two discreet pieces. Some have suggested this is so that the device can be easily opened and the battery swapped out. The EU is mandating user-swappable batteries, which is part of where the logic behind this line of thinking lies. There’s also a break up top, so we’re not even sure how far that logic goes.

Anything is possible, but given the size and type of batteries Apple is making lately, and the life they’re getting out of them, we’re not getting our hopes up. Gizmodo pegs the iPhone HD battery as 16% larger already — 5.25 WHr at 3.7V vs. the current 4.51 WHr at 3.7V.

For the most part we have external chargers. Unless we could swap the battery for one that supported inductive charging, that is…

UPDATE: Gizmodo has done an iPhone HD tear-down and the battery in NOT removable. (So here’s hoping those breaks in the aluminum are).

MicroSIM

Like iPad, the iPhone HD will use a MicroSIM as opposed to the MiniSIM found in current iPhones and almost all other phones. They’re a standard and they’re likely to become more common in the future, especially with Apple supporting them. (AT&T, Vodafone UK, Orange UK, O2, and Rogers have already announced support for the iPad).

They’re also compatible with MiniSIM so you can cut down a MiniSIM to use it in a MicroSIM device, or put a “jacket” on a MicroSIM and use it in a MiniSIM device.

It’ll make frequent SIM-switchers’ lives more difficult for a while, no doubt, which might be part of the plan, but if it saves space inside for more battery, we won’t complain too much.

Ceramic/glass back

The first iPhone 2G used aluminum for the back, with a plastic stripe to allow radio reception. The iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS went full on plastic. The iPhone HD seems to have a more glass-like back, but what that means exactly is uncertain. Certainly glass on the front and back would double the breakable surface area of the iPhone HD.

Mention has been made of an Apple patent for ceramics that would be glass-like, tough, and radio transparent. According to a source who claims familiarity with past Apple ceramic initiatives, however, that’s unlikely for two reasons: pricing and rigidity. While there are ways around the rigidity, that drives up pricing. The flat backing, if final design, would be cheaper to deliver than something like the iPhone 3GS’ curved back, but it wouldn’t solve the rigidity problem. Apple has been so determined to keep their price-point down, raising it to cover the costs of a ceramic back might not make sense yet. Rather, something akin to Gorilla Glass could be used for the actual screen itself.

We’re not super-smart chemists/alchemists, so whether or not Apple has solved those problems, or come up with some other material, there’s no way to know.

Conclusion

So there it is — a lot of rumor, a little hands-on, and just over a month to go before Steve Jobs takes the WWDC stage and almost certainly shows us all the final iPhone HD (or iPhone 4G, or whatever they call it). Like an episode of Lost, every answer until then will likely only leave us with more questions. We’ve shared our thoughts, now it’s your turn. What do you think of the 4th generation iPhone specs seen and rumored so far?

9to5Mac has hit the motherlode of code references when it comes to iPhone 4.0 iChat video secret strings and references, including what looks like moderators, chat room, encryption, and more.

Presumably moderation would let Apple prevent their hosting of ChatRoulette-style not-safe-for-families fun, especially if iChat hooks into the Game Center social network.

This is how it was with video recording and iPhone 3.0 on iPhone 3GS, so we’re getting more and more confident this is what will be come this summer with iPhone 4.0 and iPhone G4 (not iPhone 4G!), hopefully with a front-facing chat cam. iPod touch G4 and iPad G2 would also need camera upgrades (in their cases to actually, finally, getting cameras of any kind), likely in September 2010 and March 2011 respectively.

TUAW was slipped a screenshot today showing something called iChatAgent running on iPhone 4.0. iChat is Apple’s instant message client for Mac OS X that includes voice and video chat, among other features. Rumors of a Mobile iChat for iPhone that would include webcam-style video chat date back to 2008, and were most recently seen in (and then taken away from) iPhone 3.2 for iPad.

Will we finally see an honest-to-Jobs Mobile iChat video this summer at WWDC along with a next-generation iPhone (don’t call it the iPhone 4G!) featuring a front-facing camera?

We’re not getting out hopes up anymore. Really. We swear…

Tomorrow at 10am PT, 1pm ET, Steve Jobs puts sneaker to stage and, along with SVP of iPhone software, Scott Forstall, gives us a sneak preview of the highly anticipated iPhone 4.0. No one outside Apple knows exactly what new features and paradigms iPhone 4.0 will offer. However, tradition demands we make our best guesses and ask you to do the same.

This isn’t what we want, mind you. We told Apple what we want back on December 25, 2009: multitasking, better notifications, widgets for the home screen, instant access to important settings, themes, gestures like pervasive pull-down-to-refresh, system-wide “back” implementation, orientation lock, and resolution independence, along with a ton of great reader suggestions in the comments. We’ve also asked for a Finder app, like the Photo but to store document files.

This is what we think we’ll actually get, given the rumors and the direction Apple looks to be going. This is us, TiPb staff and TiPb readers reading the tea leaves…

iPhone 3.2 (aka iPad) features

This is the most obvious, really (and we’ve written about it before). All the little tweaks and enhancements Apple has made to the underlying OS, like adding “replace” to cut, copy, and paste, adding spell check to auto-correct, adding dictionary lookup to text select, etc. Wallpaper for the Home Screen, week view in Calendar and the other, sometimes small but still important, chance to the built-in apps, should be there as well. So should Bluetooth keyboard support. Oh, and iBooks.

Better Mail handling

Steve Jobs himself reportedly responded to an email saying a “universal inbox” was coming. That means, like Mac Mail but unlike current iPhone Mail, users with multiple accounts would have the option of seeing all their new messages in one place and not have to tap into and out of multiple folders every time they wanted to check every new message in every account. (Yes that sentence was crafted to feel as laborious as the current process!). Whether we’ll see more than that — IMAP IDLE, multiple exchange accounts, “synergy”-like messaging integration, etc. is unknown.

Multitasking (of a sort)

We’ve been hearing this for a while now — that Apple will offer some level of multitasking in iPhone 4.0. We’ve even seen it in the shadows. The three use-cases that it could cover are background tasks (listening to streaming internet radio while you browse Safari, keeping navigation running while you check Mail), fast task switching (going from Notes to Contacts and back), and multi-window workflow (dragging data from one application space into another).

While the “Pandora” model could easily be handled by allowing streaming accounts to be entered inside iPod (which already has background access going back to iPhone 1.0), the navigation model won’t be solved unless there’s a more universal background implementation. However, Apple has always put stability and mainstream user friendliness ahead of power-user functionality. A compromise seems most like — full background access for a highly limited number of applications.

Fast task switching was accomplished in large part by the speed of iPhone 3GS. What remains missing is the consistent saving of state by apps on exit (if you leave a twitter client or a race game and then go back it should be at exactly the place you left it), and a more elegant way to quickly move between apps — swiping between two apps 11 screens apart isn’t very Apple. The rumor here is for a Mac OS X-style Exposé implementation where a double-click of the Home Button would cause the current screen to fly out and a grid of active (background) apps to fly in. That sounds much more Apple.

Multi-window drag-and-drop may not be obvious given the small size of the iPhone, but given how Palm’s webOS Cards view presents apps — and how the iPhone Safari Pages view does likewise — is remains a tease. Still, we don’t expect it. Not yet.

New home screen (SpringBoard)

SpringBoard is the internal name of Apple’s Home Screen UI, which right now consists of an 11 page-wide application launcher grid with SpotLight search bolted on to the right. Rumors have persisted since before iPhone 3.0 that Apple has a new SpringBoard experience waiting in the wings. Again, there are several elements that could be at play: better organization, glance-able information, themes.

We’re not wishing here, so no grandiose “Apple will re-invent the metaphor for home screens with some ingenious new approach”. We’re looking at what Apple has already done for clues as to where they’re going. Stacks, then, where groups of similar apps are combined together until a tap expands them into a grid-launcher would be reasonable. Likewise, Dashboard where useful, glance-able information is always just a tap (or swipe) away. Dashboard could even integrate SpotLight, allowing it to replace a singletasker with a multitasker (how fitting). It could function similarly on the Lock Screen, for ultimate glance-ability.

We don’t see themes, however. Though they’d be a boon to users and designers/developers alike, they don’t seem very Apple (beyond the home screen wallpaper already mentioned).

Improved notification handling

We’ve beaten this one to death — if you get a constant stream of SMS, IM, game challenges, or any heavy amount of notifications each new one obliterates the one before meaning all but the most recent functionally never existed and hence never notified you of anything. Both Android and Palm webOS do this more functionally, though developers have complained to us that it may be too complex for the mainstream market Apple is targeting (too much management for mom). Could Apple create a more robust yet still drop-dead-simple notification system for the iPhone? Sure, and given how fast and far push notification has been adopted, we think it’s likely they will.

The simplest solution would be a Notification app (please, no smiley face logo) that listed all new notifications. When you’ve received multiple notifications, the dialog would show the most recent but also inform you of how many others you’ve missed, and an option to “see all” would be presented.

But that would likely make no one happy. This more than multitasking might be the most difficult nut to crack, and may end up being part of that new Home Screen mentioned above. That’s closer to guess work than we’re comfortable with for this post, however, so we’ll just leave it there for now.

iAd platform

“iAd” was rumored to be shown off on April 7, and April 8 is just a day later. Apple’s mobile advertising platform could certainly be part of the iPhone 4.0 SDK feature set unveiled for developers. Gossip says Steve Jobs wants to do for mobile advertising what iTunes did for digital music — make it not suck. We certainly hope so. Punch-the-monkey with push notifications is certainly not the new Home Screen experience we want.

iTunes.com

It’s fairly certain iTunes is moving to the cloud and becoming something akin to iTunes.com. We’d love to see streaming video from Apple, MobileMe “whispersync” to keep our place between iPhone and iPad, and other great, media-centric features. But Apple typically saves those for September to coincide with the new iPod touch and lately, new iTunes releases.

###Mobile iChat

We put this here just for Chad. We still think Mobile iChat (text and audio/video) is coming but not until the 4th generation iPhone is revealed at WWDC 2010. Apple usually holds a few new OS features back to show off the new hardware (like Compass, VoiceControl, etc. last year). Patience, Chad!

MobileMe 2.0

Beyond “whispersync” MobileMe has fallen so far behind Google services, DropBox and others that Apple really has to up its game here. Photo sync, cloud backup, and other features have gone from nice-to-have to must-have. Again, however, that feels more like a WWDC 2010 Phil Schiller announcement to us.

One more thing…?

That’s what we think is most likely to come with iPhone 4.0 tomorrow, but Apple has shown they can always surprise us (who expected the long, long list of previously missing features rattled off at the iPhone 3.0 event?). What are you expecting to see?

Daring Fireball often blurs the line between carefully concealed wink-nudge leak and flat out facetious commentary, so with that in mind John Gruber has this to say about the 4th generation iPhone (which still won’t be called iPhone 4G!):

• Apple A4-family system-on-a-chip. Nothing on whether that would be the ARM Cortex A9 multicore CPU with brand new PowerVR SGX GPU we’ve been drooling over, however.
• 960×640 display. That would be bigger than even the bigger DROID Google Android phone, but fit perfectly with the mediocre pixel-doubling announced for current iPhone apps on the iPad‘s 1024×768 display.
• Front facing camera. Which would mean all those iChat Video rumors we’ve been hearing about forever would finally come true, albeit after the HTC EVO 4G broke the barrier.
• 3rd party multitasking in iPhone 4.0. Yeah, that one we’ve got covered going way back. Which just don’t know how they’re going to implement it yet?

Again, this could just be Gruber cracking wise at the WSJ’s Verizon-rumoring expense. However, a lot of this might also be considered obvious things Apple “has to do” to stay competitive. Yet Apple hasn’t exactly been pushing the hardware specs since the iPhone 2G back in 2007. Steve Jobs was rumored to have said the next iPhone will be an A+ upgrade. Is the above a good start?

UPDATE: Engadget says they’re hearing it will launch on June 22 and be called the iPhone HD. Hey, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Before we once again get our Kevin Rose-colored glasses on and hope beyond hope this is a sign the 4th generation iPhone will support video calling and/or video iChat, we’re going to hunker down and go with O2 making a bit of a mess-up on their new iPhone plan web page (above).

It does say “UK video calls same as voice calls” but we’re just tired for being teased about front-facing cameras and SDK strings, you know?

Also, it’s important to remember that the carriers have no idea what Apple will release for the 4th generation iPhone anyway. Even if they had to test it for video conferencing, Apple would make them wait until they showed it off at a WWDC keynote or something similar because they wouldn’t want the carrier to leak the feature. Anyway, with our luck O2 will just be bringing an app see the video but not send any back… Sigh.

[O2 via FSM via Redmond Pie via 9to5Mac. Phew!]

9to5mac continues to rip through the iPhone 3.2 SDK for iPad and has now come across the images above, which show icons for accepting a declining video chat, as well as strings referencing the same.

Of course, we’ve been teased with the possibility of video iChat on the iPhone going back to Kevin Rose in March, 2008, so while we’re ever hopeful our optimism is also ever cautious on this one.

Still, video iChat sure would be a killer bullet point on iPhone 4.0, wouldn’t it?

Apple patent applications and awards are so voluminous they could fill an entire blog all by themselves — enter Patently Apple, just such a blog, which brings word of several new and interesting iPhone and iPad patents including near field communication, multipoint screen, video conferencing, and multitouch bezels.

Near field communication would allow incredibly simple, incredibly fast data transfer from an iPhone to a MacBook. It also looks like it would allow an iPhone to control a Mac or unlock a door.

Multipoint screen is all about allowing an iPad to detect multiple touches at the same time via a “transparent capacitive sensing medium”.

Video conferencing has been teased for a long — long — time, but now it’s also being looked at in the context of a location aware social network.

The touch sensitive bezel, when added to the previous touch sensitive back casing patent and the current touch sensitive screen would make a fully capacitive iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad! It could also add Palm Pre and Pixi-style gesture areas.

As always, Apple files for and obtains a large amount of patents, and we never know when, if ever, we’ll see them in actual products. That being said, any of these make your want list?

[Thanks to Duvi for the tip!]

Engadget has been getting tips from deep code divers who are exploring Apple’s latest iPhone 3.2 SDK for the iPad and what they’re finding includes code/hooks for iChat-style video Calling, file downloads from Mobile Safari, support for telephony like SMS and calls, and some prototype support for a “handwriting keyboard”. The video conferencing news is especially intriguing:

We’re told that there are hooks to accept and decline a video conference, flip a video feed (which suggests a front-facing camera) and — most importantly — run the video call in either full screen mode or in just a portion of the screen. That means you’ll be able to chat and do other things at the same time, which could mean there’s at least some type of multitasking going on here.

Could this be another example of the iPad being “unfinished“, or of Apple removing a camera at the last minute — like the iPod touch G3 — because they couldn’t get an implementation that was good enough in time for the big reveal?

Looks like there’s some good news (or good speculation at least) for iPhone owners as well, since the devices all share the same OS code base:

chpwn also tells us [...] both the new landscape orientation for the homescreen and keyboard support appear to be destined for the iPhone itself when 3.2 comes out.

Boy Genius‘ ninjas — Canuck chapter — have gotten their tiger-clawed hands on what looks to be Fido Canada’s 2009 roadmap. Fido, which was bought by Rogers and is now marketed as the budget-conscious GSM brand, carries the iPhone 3G, and if this leak is correct, just might next be carrying:

a 4GB iPhone model that will run for $99 and come with quad-band EDGE, tri-band HSDPA, a 2 megapixel shooter and, believe it or not, iChat video calling

The Rogers/Fido network might support video iChat better than AT&T’s but we can’t see Apple making something as huge as that without doing it global, much less on bigger devices than 4GB…

What do you think, is it real, or is it fakaroid?

[Via Jeffdc5]

This is not a drill! We finally have someone, likely with no actual knowledge of the engineering or design of the next gen iPhone, going on record as saying:

his sources indicate Apple is readying a new iPhone that will ship in June with an upgraded camera that could deliver big improvements to the iPhone experiences, including both still and video capabilities “with possibly another camera on the front for video chat.”

iChat on the iPhone has been a perennial favorite among rumormeisters before every new launch, real and imagined, just like iPhone nano speculation. Speaking of which…

Apple Insider‘s coverage of Barclay’s Capital analyst Ben Reitzes’ predictions doesn’t stop there, of course, as we also get the prerequisite low end iPhone nano-ized rumors, the high end video iPhone Pro rumors.

Some of these are logical inferences, some are wishful thinking. We’re thinking — why let analysts have all the fun? What are you wishing for? Do we want Mobile iChat video? Could AT&T even support it in iPhone numbers? And if Apple isn’t going to fracture the platform with different screen sizes, are features a realistic way to differentiate their offerings?

No, nothing new here. Same story we’ve heard off and on for almost a year now, typically from Kevin Rose. But the internets are all a twitter about it, so for completeness’ sake, here’s the story again from CrunchGear, augmented with the recent iPhone patent grants:

Apparently video recording is mentioned frequently throughout the entire document but a few images and sections explain a video conferencing capable phone.

Yet they, like us, remain cautiously optimistic at best. After all, Apple files tons of patents, is granted quite a few, but only ever ships a very small subset.

Still… I wants it for my iPhone HD. How about you?

Digg and Pownce founder and web 2.0 darling Kevin Rose, during the latest Diggnation podcast, made the following prognostications about the eventual 3G iPhone (via Apple Insider):

[Kevin Rose] claims that a 3G version of the iPhone hardware due in a few months will employ two digital cameras situated back-to-back — one on the front side of the unit behind the transparent touch-screen, and a second one on the back of the handset as it exists today.

Rose also conjectures that this may be why Apple has limited background processes in the current SDK: to prevent competition to their upcoming iChat Touch application.

iChat Touch, according to Rose, will allow full-on video conferencing via high-speed HSDPA between 3G iPhone users and desktop iChat users alike.

As to how reliable Rose’s predictions may be, Apple Insider reminds us:

In the week’s leading up to last year’s iPhone introduction, the Digg founder cited sources in saying Apple would introduce the handset with a slide-out keyboard, two separate battery compartments, and make it available for both CDMA and GSM networks — all of which turned out to be false.

So, um… er… yeah — we’ll take this with a shovel full of salt for now.

Still, the idea iChat Touch with video is exciting and functionality I’d love to see on the second generation iPhone. What do you think?