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If this prediction holds, Apple could add an awful lot of value to MobileMe by providing a sort of answering machine service to subscribers.

I'm close to wireless for most of the day, but when I'm not it would be nice to have FaceTime callers that couldn't reach me leave a video message that got delivered via email.

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Not that it's a bad idea, it's not, but if you're doing it by email anyway, then you can just hang up, fire up the camera app, record your 'message', and email/MMS it to the recipient. In fact, you can do that today, without iOS 4, or even an iPhone 4 (with some dexterity).

That's a lot more work, though, than simply leaving a message.

An "Email this person a video message" button on the call screen doesn't seem too tough though.

Back around the turn of the century when the UK was experiencing a brief bout of videophone mania, my friend who got free video phone minutes would leave me video calls if he ran out both voice and text credit on his pay-as-you-go phone. It was all a bit Max Headroom.

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