Video Calling Coming to Windows Phone
By on January 10th, 2011

Windows Phone 7 is a fantastic operating system, one that has real potential. However, there is still a lot of work to be done, and Microsoft knows it.

In a comment to Neowin, a Microsoft employee divulged that Microsoft is currently working on a Facetime like application for Windows Phone 7.

Windows-Phone-7-Facetime

Although details are scarce, a snippet of code from Microsoft.Phone.Media.Extended.dll confirms that Microsoft is indeed working towards supporting front-facing cameras. It’s unclear if the video calling app will be added to Windows Phone 7 itself, or if it is destined for Windows Phone 8. Rumors suggest that a front-facing camera might be added as a mandatory hardware requirement for Windows Phone 8.

It’s not surprising that Microsoft is working on a voice calling app for Windows Phone 7. After all, Facetime was one of the major selling points for the iPhone 4. It was one of the features that appealed to the common man.

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Author: Pallab De Google Profile for Pallab De
Pallab De is a blogger from India who has a soft spot for anything techie. He loves trying out new software and spends most of his day breaking and fixing his PC. Pallab loves participating in the social web; he has been active in technology forums since he was a teenager and is an active user of both twitter (@indyan) and facebook .

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  • aq

    Cmon,
    videocalling has been used for ages in smart phones and by smart users. By smart users I mean the peope who know how to push the “video camera” icon next to the “green phone” icon. By smart phones I mean basically any other mobile OS than iOS.
    Hopefully Microsoft will bring the same features to winpho as winmo had. For example videocalling that works in 3G network. I just dont want to go back 5-10 years when I needed to be home to use videocalls.
    It hard to understand how people in the States are so taken with propriety video calling solution that you can use only stationary. Or was it just some marketing hype app that nobody really uses?

    • http://www.nomeansno.com Fred

      Quite right Aq, it certainly is disappointing (though, sadly, not altogether unexpected) to see Microsoft release Windows Phone with such mainstays of Windows Mobile (for some of us) as video calling. I’ve chosen to stick with my Touch Diamond & WinMo 6.5, rather than upgrade to WP7, specifically because I’m not giving up the video telephony I’ve been using on the 3G network here in Oz since 2004 and it is infuriating (to say the least) to listen to some people pretend Apple invented it or insinuate that Microsoft is somehow emulating some recent Apple “innovation” by simply re-enabling a well-established feature of the previous generation(s) of their mobile operating system from years before iPhones were even “invented”.

      No, Techie-Buzz, Windows won’t be getting any “Facetime-for-Windows” – it’ll just return a feature it had before iPhones were a twinkle in anyone’s eye, and it’s a bit on-the-nose for you to imply otherwise.

  • Ramses

    I completely agree with both of you. My now 2 year old Nokia 6210 Navigator could do video call but everyone I knew then had a simple phone or an android.

 
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