History of Video Calls: From Fantasy to Flops to Facetime

A visual history of the science and sci-fi of phone calls you can see. (And, no, it didn't start with The Jetsons.)

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Victorian Sci-Fi

Shortly after Alexander Graham Bell's famous 1876 conversation, the telephone caught the public's imagination, and it wasn't long before people (including Bell himself) were speculating on how to transmit images as well as sound. Seen here are two illustrations of early videophone concepts. On the left is an 1878 illustration by George du Maurier published in Punch's Almanack. To the right is a 1910 French card envisioning a visual telephone in the year 2000.

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History of Video Calls: From Fantasy to Flops to Facetime

A visual history of the science and sci-fi of phone calls you can see. (And, no, it didn't start with The Jetsons.)

Victorian Sci-Fi

Victorian Sci-Fi

The Prototype Era

The Picturephone I

The Videophone in Culture

The Picturephone II

The First Digital Picture Phones

AT&T Returns

Mid-1990s Desktop Phones

Enter the Webcam

Mobile Video Phones

The Video Chat Revolution

2000s-era Video IP Phones

2010 and Beyond