FaceTime, the great video-conferencing feature introduced by Apple with the iPhone 4, has definitely been a strong selling point for the handset. Yet, FaceTime might end up not being available for everyone.
As spotted by TUAW, Apple's official websites in countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Yemen, which are due to get the iPhone 4 very soon, have recently been updated to remove all signs of FaceTime. Not only in the featured pictures you can see below, where the FaceTime display has been replaced by the Retina display, but also throughout the descriptions, where no mention of FaceTime can be found.
While changing the advertising could just be a matter of cultural sensitivity, since a woman was featured, it's very strange that all the mentions of FaceTime have been removed as well. I'm not an expert on cultural affairs, but when it comes to the feature itself, the problem doesn't seem like one of cultural sensitivity. Instead, some of these governments enforce strong limitations when it comes to VoIP or encrypted communication. For those who follow other tech news, you might remember that Saudi Arabia recently prevented Blackberry devices from functioning in the country for a short time, as their communications are encrypted. The government couldn't access them for "surveillance purposes." If you consider that FaceTime doesn't go through phone carriers, it could get complicated for these governments to watch.
Of course, this could be just a lot of fuss over a cosmetic advertising change. It would be very surprising to see Steve give in to any government, especially when it comes to his pet product, the iPhone, and its features.
We'll see how this develops and keep you updated. In the meantime, what do you think?
