T-Mobile HTC Slide to provide non-FaceTime video chat with iPhone 4

FaceTime is one of the most visible features of the iPhone 4, with much of the advertising for the newest iPhone showing off the emotionally-rich video chat capabilities that FaceTime provides. But if your friends are on another network or don't have an iPhone 4, it's impossible to use your phone to video chat with them.

Yahoo! and T-Mobile would like to change that. T-Mo announced earlier in the week that an upcoming Android phone, the HTC Slide, will come with two cameras arrayed much in the same manner as those on the iPhone. The Slide will also provide video chatting with any other phone equipped with two cameras, including the iPhone 4.

Since FaceTime is an Apple-specific feature, how is T-Mobile going to do this? Through Yahoo! Messenger. The current iOS app doesn't appear to currently support video chats, but Yahoo!'s admission that the capability would be available for the iPhone 4 indicates that an upcoming version will take advantage of the built-in cameras.

Yahoo! Messenger will not only provide video chatting with other mobile devices, but it should also make it possible to share some "face time" with Yahoo! Messenger users on Macs and PCs as well. It's expected that the HTC Slide from T-Mobile will be available prior to Christmas, hopefully bringing the new versions of Yahoo! Messenger for iOS and Mac OS X that will make possible video chatting for the holidays.
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