To celebrate the arrival of Skype’s mobile video chat on the iPhone 4, today’s Throwback Thursday looks back fondly on another ultimately fruitless attempt to popularize video calling: the AT&T VideoPhone 2500. AT&T had swung and missed with video calling before, but the introduction of the VideoPhone 2500 in 1992 would be the home run the company had been waiting for. Costing just $1,599.99 per phone or $1,449.99 each if you bought two or more, this puppy was going to bring video calling to the eager masses. Grandparents would be able to see their precious little grandchildren from across the country, workaholic dads would be able to video-call their kids before bedtime, tweens would be able to take sexting to the next uncomfortable level… wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves a little. But alas, no one wanted to pay an arm and a leg for a video phone, no one wanted to cough up between $30 and $90 each month for video calling, and in the end, no one was really interested in the service at all once the novelty wore off — just like we’re seeing today with mobile video chat.
BGR’s Throwback Thursday is a weekly series covering our (and your) favorite gadgets, games, and software of yesterday and yesteryear.
