My understanding is that the patent nonsense forced Apple to transform FaceTime from a peer-to-peer protocol into one that transmitted all data through centralized servers, specifically Apple&#x27;s servers.<p>That meant that if the goal was for interoperability, Apple had to either provide server capacity for a bunch of other people&#x27;s traffic, or they would have had to come up with a way to federate the system.<p>Federation certainly could have been done, but that&#x27;s a lot of sudden extra growth in scope compared to just taking what they had and releasing it.