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Should Apple Let Competitors Use FaceTime? (cnet.com)
In 2010, Steve Jobs first introduced FaceTime and promised it would become an open industry standard that could be used by Apple's competitors -- not just Apple. Well, eight years later and that still hasn't happened. CNET's Sean Hollister provides a theory as to why that is: There's also an ongoing lawsuit to consider -- as Ars Technica documented in 2013, Apple was forced to majorly change how FaceTime works to avoid infringing on the patents of a company called VirnetX. Instead of letting phones communicate directly with each other, Apple added "relay servers" to help the phones connect. Presumably, someone would have to pay for those servers, and/or figure out a way for them to talk to Google or Microsoft or other third-party servers if FaceTime were going to be truly open. But that doesn't make a broken promise less frustrating. Particularly now that Apple could potentially fix annoying business video calls as well. A Skype-killing video chat service that worked on Mac, iOS *and* Windows, Android and the open web? That's something I bet companies would be happy to pay for, too.
Facetime and iMessage are the only two features keeping me on the apple ecosystem.
Mom and Dad can easily call their kids and with the touch of a button switch to facetime and see the grandkids.
With android, I'm not sure if you're supposed to send messages with Messages, Allo, Hangouts....
The story fails to mention that Steve Jobs' announcement was also the first time any of the programming team at Apple had heard it.
Since then, maybe they could have engineered a new solution that could be open, but Jobs basically made that point up on the spot and following through on that at the time really wasn't feasible. After the initial announcement window had passed, it'd be hard to believe that it would be worth their time.