I remember this and thought I was crazy. There was an article linked somewhere on Lemmy last week that addressed this. It seemed like it was a Steve Jobs special - no one knew he was going to promise that. Subsequently, they got tangled up in a patent dispute with someone who owned a very vague communications protocol patent. That outcome has been appealed, from both sides, in courts basically since then.
Oh I hadn’t connected those dates together. Certainly it could have been part of his vision. It could be a very interesting world if FaceTime was available on other operating systems. Who knows what else may have come with it.