Are you a user of Calliflower, UberConference, Voxeet or now a free version of GoToMeeting? Well if you are, they WebRTC is a part of your daily workflow.
With WebRTC in the guts of the services we’re now seeing just what WebRTC can deliver, and when one hears how much brighter the audio is, and sees how crisp video is it’s not hard to believe that only ten years ago services like SightSpeed were pioneering laptop/desktop video and Skype was just entering the game. Yet I would contend that we’re only beginning to see and hear how real time communications will change, not because of WebRTC, as that’s only a part of the changing landscape. What we’re seeing is a complete change in user behavior, interface design and the experience we have in over not only laptops but now tablets and smartphones.
I’m a bit surprised that Apple hasn’t done more with FaceTime, which already uses SIP at its core, especially when one considers how far Google is going with Hangouts. Then again, Apple has been in lock step with Microsoft in holding back on being in on the WebRTC standard. FaceTime is native now on all platforms, yet, its still only point to point, one to one communications, and the APIs for it remain off limits to the developers of other real time communications apps. And therein lies the reason why WebRTC in the apps and services is so crucial. With WebRTC there’s a way around the private APIs, and for users who want to move forward, its a path, while for developers it’s all a part of the journey.
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