Fring, Skype, Android, Evo

Today was a milestone. I placed and received my first video call from my HTC Evo smartphone. Amazing. This is Jetsons stuff we're talking about.

Fring released an app for Android phones that allows video calls over Wi-Fi/3G/4G. It also integrates with Skype and allows you to connect to any of your Skype contacts as well. So I connected with a Skype friend who was at his desktop PC running Skype with a desktop USB camera connected. Bing, bang, boom, we were video conferencing! My screen showed his video with my video in the corner, a la picture in picture.

Of course, the HTC Evo has a front facing camera that makes this all very convenient. Other phones without a front facing camera can presumably still use it, but will have to point their screens away from themselves when making a call.

Video quality was ok...a few skips here and there but totally usable. I walked around my office showing it off to coworkers, who were pretty impressed.

I then friended someone else with an Evo from a forum I frequent and we also had a video chat, Evo-to-Evo. He was located in Kansas City, while I was in Redwood City, California. He walked outside and showed me around. Video got choppy at that point since he was on Wi-Fi and was losing his signal. But it worked. And it worked well enough to be a usable product.

Now onto the flying cars that collapse into briefcases...