- Jobs announced earlier that they would ship tens of millions facetime devices this year…yeah, the iphone and ipod touch could meet this figure but a few more million in time for xmas with a camera for facetime would put it over the edge

- Apple is being aggressive on price right now(for them anyways) with the ipad but as Windows and Android tablets hit the market as xmas arrives, something fresh like facetime would leave Windows and Android tablets eating their dust

Of course such a feature change this early in the cycle might seem to not follow Apple's normal course of doing things but consider that Apple has made fairly big changes in their Mac line leaving some models somewhat as orphans like the original unibody Macbook Pro's that had the removeable battery that didn't measure up to the built in battery in models afterward. A change with the ipad would be done earlier but having their whole line of IOS devices able to do facetime during the xmas season would be a heck of a marketing opportunity(aka touching tv commercials) as well as a punch in the gut to Apple's competitors.

Apple could score bigtime with people broadcasting live to friends and relatives via facetime their kids opening presents. You could probably throw in a new version of AppleTV in there as well.

For what it's worth with a bluetooth headset like what's used for phones and a webcam with face tracking technology, Apple could do something with facetime for AppleTV in the living room as well. If MS can do something like Kinnect for games, surely Apple can do something with face tracking and have a camera that can zoom in on it.

Just my 2 cents.

My son would love the one I have too!