FaceTime Contacts

Currently FaceTime shows all of your contacts without the option to filter them.

As for your Mac contacts and iPad contacts, they both need to be syncing with a service to keep them both current. When iCloud launches, you'll be able to sync both machines to iCloud which will keep them in sync. Of course you could also use something like Gmail to do it as well.

What I do is add all of my FaceTime contacts into the "Favorites" section...

18 months on.....is there still no way to have facetime show only contacts who are actually on facetime?

What's the benefit of facetime showing all my general contacts?

(have tried facetime for the first time today)

ozaz said:

18 months on.....is there still no way to have facetime show only contacts who are actually on facetime?

What's the benefit of facetime showing all my general contacts?

(have tried facetime for the first time today)

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Holy necro post and nope, there still isn't. I'd do what the above poster suggested if it bothers you that much. For me, I just go to the contact or tell Siri to "FaceTime Bob".

HazyCloud said:

Holy necro post and nope, there still isn't. I'd do what the above poster suggested if it bothers you that much. For me, I just go to the contact or tell Siri to "FaceTime Bob".

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Thanks for the confirmation.

I fail to understand how it doesn't bother everyone that much.

The solution of manually adding contacts with facetime ability to favorites is only a partial solution. It doesn't solve the problem of how to identify contacts who can be contacted through facetime in the first place.

Apart from some of my family and friends who live locally, I don't know which ones use iOS devices / Macs and even when I do, I don't know which ones are registered for facetime.

And then there are all the family and friends and work colleagues and contacts who I don't see regularly. I have no idea what devices they use.

So if you don't know which ones are FaceTime capable, are you expecting the device to tell you?

FWIW, after you FaceTime with someone, a blue camera icon is placed next to their info so you know they can accept FaceTime calls.

HazyCloud said:

So if you don't know which ones are FaceTime capable, are you expecting the device to tell you?

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Yes. I was expecting that instead of facetime (the ipad and mac apps) showing all my contacts from my address book, it would pick out and show only those contacts that are facetime capable. I really don't see the point of displaying the whole address book in the (mac and ipad) facetime app or displaying a facetime button on the iphone contact card of people who are not facetime capable.

FWIW, after you FaceTime with someone, a blue camera icon is placed next to their info so you know they can accept FaceTime calls.

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Thanks, I noticed that. But it still does not solve the initial identification problem.

ozaz said:

Yes. I was expecting that instead of facetime (the ipad and mac apps) showing all my contacts from my address book, it would pick out and show only those contacts that are facetime capable. I really don't see the point of displaying the whole address book in the (mac and ipad) facetime app or displaying a facetime button on the iphone contact card of people who are not facetime capable.



Thanks, I noticed that. But it still does not solve the initial identification problem.

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I can understand what you're asking, but I've never seen it as an issue. I think the problem is Apple may know "X" has an @apple email, but they don't know if the address is used for FaceTime. Since each user can select what address or phone number they use for FT, what you're asking is impossible as the email address used can change at anytime per the user.

If I were you, I'd go through your contacts that are important and do a FT call with them so eventually all of your FT contacts will be easily noticeable.

To find out which friends have an iDevice is to check with SMS it will tell you if they are using non-idevice (green) or idevice (blue/imessage).

Badrottie said:

To find out which friends have an iDevice is to check with SMS it will tell you if they are using non-idevice (green) or idevice (blue/imessage).

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Sort of. That's only if they've enabled iMessage. If they haven't, there's no way for your iOS device to know if it's an Apple device or not that would accept FaceTime calls. I can think of at least 2 of my family members that can accept FT calls, but neither had iMessage turned on or updated to iOS 5. (FaceTime showed up in iOS 4.)

Plus, if it's a Mac with Lion, they can accept FaceTime calls but wouldn't have iMessage due to it coming in Mountain Lion. But, that's not a bad suggestion to start getting an idea on who has an iOS device and who doesn't.

BTW, idevice is like nails on a chalk board.

HazyCloud said:

I can understand what you're asking, but I've never seen it as an issue. I think the problem is Apple may know "X" has an @apple email, but they don't know if the address is used for FaceTime. Since each user can select what address or phone number they use for FT, what you're asking is impossible as the email address used can change at anytime per the user.

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Fair enough. I don't think that's insurmountable but it would require a feature addition from Apple. iCloud should know which phone numbers and email addresses in my address book are linked to facetime so surely my device could scan my address book and send this to icloud which then identified to my device which of my contacts have numbers/email addresses that are setup for facetime. I suppose the issue would be when should this happen and how often.

ozaz said:

Fair enough. I don't think that's insurmountable but it would require a feature addition from Apple. iCloud should know which phone numbers and email addresses in my address book are linked to facetime so surely my device could scan my address book and send this to icloud which then identified to my device which of my contacts have numbers/email addresses that are setup for facetime. I suppose the issue would be when should this happen and how often.

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You may try going to http://www.apple.com/feedback/ and letting Apple know.