Now you’re just making stuff up. Apple doesn’t own h.264.
From Wiki:
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC (Advanced Video Coding) is a standard for video compression. The final drafting work on the first version of the standard was completed in May 2003.
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is a block-oriented motion-compensation-based codec standard developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) together with the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It was the product of a partnership effort known as the Joint Video Team (JVT). The ITU-T H.264 standard and the ISO/IEC MPEG-4 AVC standard (formally, ISO/IEC 14496-10 - MPEG-4 Part 10, Advanced Video Coding) are jointly maintained so that they have identical technical content. H.264 is used in such applications as Blu-ray Disc, videos from YouTube and the iTunes Store, DVB broadcast, direct-broadcast satellite television service, cable television services, and real-time videoconferencing........
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You don’t need a WiFi sniffer to use WiFi on your iPhone. Any broadcasting network will show up as available when you try to use the internet. The phone sees the availability and asks you if you want to use it, or any other listed network. Droid probably works the same way. So does my laptop.
I’m happy you’ve had an enjoyable Sqkype experience. I can use Skype on the iPhone too.
Apple has a pretty significant financial stake in the H.264 patent pool, and they are protecting it by refusing to allow Google or Skype to use their own video CODECs. It’s Apple’s H.264 or nothing.
As far as hand-me-down phones, there may be lots of them, but that market also exists for all other phones, too. I know I sold my old Samsung i760 on Craigslist for $60 when I upgraded to my new HTC Touch Pro2.
Then why did you bring it up as something you use when finding locations to use FaceTime?