The Wi-Fi glitch that required Steve Jobs to ask WWDC audience members to shut off their Wi-Fi connections so he could demonstrate the new iPhone 4 drew most of the attention about the news - at least initially. But in the aftermath of the event, at least one report noted that the part of the demonstration featuring the new iPhone 4's camera brought another surprise - the fact that it involved Apple's FaceTime videoconferencing application rather than Skype.

That has led industry pundits to voice their surprise that Apple isn't employing 3G capabilities for the videoconferencing feature and, perhaps more importantly, prompted them to wonder what impact Facetime will have on Skype and other VoIP services.
 
FaceTime, which is built into the iPhone 4's iOS 4 operating system, doesn't require any setup, making for a seamlessly user experience, according to the same report. However, FaceTime only runs over Wi-Fi on the iPhone 4. That could be a limitation that will enable Skype to move on video calling before FaceTime takes off in a big way, the report indicates.
 
Meanwhile, Fring could use Facetime to their advantage, the report continues, particularly if they offer iPhone 4 users more feature functionality and get a foot in the door with users early on.
 
At the same time, Skype is readying to debut an application featuring video chat on all Android handsets later this year, according to a TMCnet report.
 
'Skype envisions a world where video plays a larger role in the way we communicate. It's on computers, televisions, and it will eventually be coming to mobile devices too. We're betting big on video, and we intend to set the bar on mobile video calling, and it's something we're going to do this year. We will be bringing a direct to consumer app to the Android marketplace later this year. This application will be available for all consumers globally to download regardless of carriers,' the company said in a statement.
 
Skype competitor Fring also recently announced a new Android application that offers free video calling. That wraps together a number of services, such as Skype, MSN, ICQ, GTalk and other IM platforms into a single application.

By Paula Bernier.