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Yahoo Messenger app to allow iPhone to Computer video calling

FaceTime, one of the iPhone 4’s marquee features, already has some heated competition in the App Store. These apps include the popular Fring and most recently Tango video calling applications. Fring is popular for its large feature set, 3G video calling capabilities, and compatibility with other mobile phone. The recently launched “Tango” app is known for its ease of use as well as 3G video calling capabilities with other iPhones and smartphones. Today Reuters reports on some interesting information they learned regarding an upcoming Yahoo video calling application for the iPhone.

This Yahoo video calling application will be a free update to their already available Yahoo Messaging app on the App Store, and it has some surprises hidden up its sleeve. The updated application will not only work over WiFi and 3G, like Fring and Tango, but will allow for video calls between iPhones and computers running the desktop Yahoo Messenger application. This new app poses some serious competition to Apple’s built-in FaceTime feature as it not only allows for video calling over 3G but opens up the door for video calling with many more users.

Apple announced back at WWDC that FaceTime over 3G would be coming at some point in 2011 as they still have to work out terms with carriers, and from our tests 3G FaceTime works very well. Apple is rumored to be launching a desktop version of FaceTime that will be integrated into the Mac’s iChat application. This upcoming app from Yahoo is reportedly yet to be approved, and hopefully this helps serve as a push for Apple to bring FaceTime to the desktop, iChat to Windows, and FaceTime to more devices.

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