iPhone for the Deaf

deafmac.org on the WWDC keynote by Steve Jobs yesterday:

The “one more thing” from Steve Jobs was some­thing we all expect­ed – video call­ing on the iPhone 4. What was not expect­ed was how it put Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage users in the spot­light, at the very end of the Face­Time video.

Of every­thing in the (near­ly two hour) pre­sen­ta­tion, this caught my atten­tion the most. Most of the exam­ples of how Apple thinks iPhone 4 own­ers will use Face­Time were every­thing you’d expect (except for that; you do that that on your own time). How­ev­er, show­ing a con­ver­sa­tion tak­ing place over the phone in ASL was a mov­ing way to show­case how this phone can real­ly do some­thing no oth­er can.

Will the iPhone 4 be the first cell phone that sup­ports com­mu­ni­ca­tion for the hear­ing impaired with no con­fig­u­ra­tion or third-par­ty applications?