[Andy Turner (Unverified) Posted Jun 3rd 2008 5:31AM]

People don't use it because it's pointless, full stop. In a world where people text messages to each other and don't even care about hearing the other person's voice, they certainly don't care about seeing each other. Plus, in order to have a video call, you have to hold it at a distance such that you can no longer have a private conversation, you have to have the whole thing on speakerphone. Also it means you have to look at the phone whilst speaking and therefore you can't be getting on with something else at the same time. They missed a trick in speccing video calls too. It should be possible to ad-hoc switch into video mode within an already established call. It's far more likely that, in the process of explaining/telling/describing something to the other person, you might want to hold down the video button, point the handset at the house/car/dress/person/package/document etc.. in question until the other person can see it. I see that being more useful, rather than having to decide up front whether you're going to want video.

[youngcalihottie (Unverified) Posted Jun 3rd 2008 4:44PM]

completely agree with ad hoc switch

its still nice to see someone when you're out of town or if its someone who doesnt live near you, but i c where ur coming from with the texts

[Posted Jun 3rd 2008 6:17PM]

There's really something to that. I worked on a video / powepoint eLearning tool a while ago that was based on the premise of the educator being able to show themselves to their remote students. Many profs wanted it turned off - they did want to show specific snippets of some manual process however.

The real thing driving a new feature should be its usefulness...not how good it looks on TV.