iSpeculation

I heard a recorded marketing message while on hold with AT&T customer support this morning that fanned the flames of an old suspicion of mine. I've speculated about this with others in the past (if memory serves, they remained skeptical) but this recent discovery has lead me to think that...well...here's a bit of background first:

One of my first thoughts upon seeing images of the iPhone last January was, holy crap, they put an iSight in the front of the phone. That wasn't the case, obviously, but it really looked that way. Apple is very deliberate about the shapes and footprints of their products and they clearly marked the iPhone back button with the shape of the iSight.

The ability to use an integrated iSight to video chat with Sam is what first led me to buy a MacBook--I had been a staunch PC user prior to seeing the first incarnation of the Intel MacBooks. Video chatting never seemed that cool to me until it was as easy as clicking a button, and it was never practical for me to lug around a camera until it was a tiny component built into my laptop. Now I use it all the time.

It just makes sense that Apple would swing the camera around to the front of the iPhone to allow for video chat. It would be like the Dick Tracy watch, only better. The hardware is there, the (3G) network infrastructure is there, the feature would be totally groundbreaking and surely lead to even greater success of the product, and now there's even an existing live(ish) video sharing feature within the AT&T network (the one I heard advertised today). Considering it's a network exclusive, they've rolled this feature out unusually quietly.

Goldsmith prediction: The next iPhone will support video chat. And I will buy it. Promptly.