Ipad with front facing camera

het does anyone know if the ipad with have a front facing camera? and why is it so hard for cell phone company s to allow those that are not on the network to video chat with others???

I'm having trouble deciphering what exactly you're asking.

The iPad does not have a camera at all. Someday it will *probably* have a front-facing camera for Facetime, but that day could be quite a long way off; the demand for the iPad is huge and will accelerate with the release of iOS 4.1 and the holiday buying season; I do not see much chance of the iPad gaining some of the iPhone 4's coolest hardware features (retina display, facetime) till the next revision, which I *personally* expect will be next April. Nobody knows this for certain, including me.

As for your second question (again not sure what you're actually asking), cell phone bandwidth is highly constricted by comparison to broadband bandwidth. So don't expect to see FaceTime for 3G users for a long time if ever (by the time they make that happen, 4G will be deployed en masse).

Facetime, as it works with iPhone 4s (and probably the next iPod Touch) or iChat/Skype (for computers), works best with the higher bandwidth of wifi, and that will probably remain the case for the foreseeable future. I've seen hacks (and other phones) that enable video calling on 3G, but not only don't they work as reliably or well as Facetime, they wouldn't work at all if millions of 3G customers were using it.

Apple would rather hold back a feature that's cool but doesn't work with reliable excellence than move forward with something not quite finished. That's why I don't think video calling a la FaceTime will be available on cell networks anytime soon.

One last thought: some of us have been waiting for video calling to work like Facetime does for over 40 years. I *literally* got a demo of video calling when I was in grade school. The fact that its here *at all* is such a miracle, I think I can manage to wait a year or three for the infrastructure to develop a bit more to handle demand. Patience, young padawan.

Just do a search of the forum as THIS bloody question has been asked too many times .....

chas_m said:

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One last thought: some of us have been waiting for video calling to work like Facetime does for over 40 years. I *literally* got a demo of video calling when I was in grade school. The fact that its here *at all* is such a miracle, I think I can manage to wait a year or three for the infrastructure to develop a bit more to handle demand. Patience, young padawan.

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Although it was a bit after grade school for me, just thought that bared repeating.

Where is my Richard Tracy Wrist radio/Communicator?? I had to put richard in place of the name they used in the 50's as it set off the word filter!

Give it time, it will all happen.

I want one of those cool invisible screens that just float in mid air like the ones on CSI. When will those be out?

chas_m said:

I'm having trouble deciphering what exactly you're asking.

The iPad does not have a camera at all.

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I 2nd your confusion. Same thing I thought when I first read the OP's post yesterday.

- Nick

bobtomay said:

I want one of those cool invisible screens that just float in mid air like the ones on CSI. When will those be out?

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I am just waiting for someone to invent a small device that would fit in a shirt pocket or even clip on my belt or maybe on an arm band where I could store all my music. I really think something like that would be a big seller!

chas_m said:

One last thought: some of us have been waiting for video calling to work like Facetime does for over 40 years.

Click to expand...

Then you probably should have been living in one of many parts of either Asia or Europe for the past couple decades. Facetime isn't that special. It just happens to reside on a much nicer screen than most others which have been doing it for years.

Just sayin.

Doug

I've been using iChat for years, so "video calling" isn't that remarkable; what's remarkable is the quality and ease of use on such a small device. And yes, I'm aware that some parts of the world are ahead of North America on this point, but I've travelled into some of those places but not seen anything quite as spectacular as FaceTime.