iOS 15 Brings FaceTime to PC and Android Users With New Option to Join on the Web

[JippaLippa]

Great to see this option being made available, but this is one of those things that look great in a keynote but I fail to actually see implemented in real life.

Sharing a facetime link to non-apple people would feel a bit unnatural as they'd certantly ask why we didn't use something like zoom, signal, whatsapp and so on.

 

[MacBH928]

I get the idea of a closed ecosystem and to keep your customers in the trap...but iMessages is one of those app that if you do on other platforms it will make you gain more users and make your own users more happy.

Making iMessage iOS only makes your own users use competitors like Whatsapp and FB Messenger.

 

[one more]

Good luck with dethroning Zoom and Teams, Apple! It is a good “inclusive” initiative, of course, but I cannot imagine any existing teams wanting to swap their group video service. Even with 10 people in a group, it is often quite complicated to explain to everybody how it works.

 

[one more]

Bring out an iMessage and FaceTime app for Android and windows and charge $3 for a month or $25 a year.

Apple will need to pay these amounts to Android/Windows crew just to try iMessage and FaceTime, LOL. Remember, outside of Apple’s secure bubble, there are more choices, based on product quality and features.

 

[orthorim]

they should just make a first rate android app and be done with it, just use the same business models as other services do on those devices?

Anyway - Finally! - I also remember Jobs saying it will be an open standard...

 

[Nica]

i could literally have used this yesterday haha
Not that I’m complaining! A nice surprise, for sure

 

[9646829]

I like how they used the worst looking phone possible to show it working on Android lol.

 

[svish]

Good that now you can do FaceTime call to someone not having apple devices. Scheduled FaceTime calls 👍

 

[cdrider]

FaceTime now officially competes with Zoom. Excited.

Not in the slightest. Zoom has breakout rooms, raise hand, polls, web conference with 1000 attendees etc etc. The products aren't in the same ballpark at all.

 

[cdrider]

Didn't Steve promise that FaceTime would be an open standard over ten years ago?

Yeah and then the patent troll Virtnex had them in court for years so Apple changed it from peer to peer to going through a central server (or the other way round, can't remember). The open standards thing was dropped because of that.

 

[Middling]

Great that this is finally happening (more than a decade after Steve Jobs promised FaceTime would be released as an open standard).

Looks like it'll be using WebRTC on the browser/Android side which is a good move. Traditionally FaceTime uses H.264 for video and AAC for audio, and while H.264 is one of the Mandatory to Implement codecs for WebRTC AAC is not (and AFAIK most browsers do not support encoding of AAC). So it's likely that FaceTime is finally starting to support the Opus codec, which should improve audio quality a bit.

Hopefully a future update will bring support for AV1 when it's more widely supported, allowing for completely open source/patent-free communication.

 

[George Dawes]

Would this work with WhatsApp ?

 

[raindogg]

How about making FaceTime work with more than 1 person constantly? Right now it's a 50-50 chance.

 

[brofkand]

Yeah and then the patent troll Virtnex had them in court for years so Apple changed it from peer to peer to going through a central server (or the other way round, can't remember). The open standards thing was dropped because of that.

Totally forgot about Virtnex. Thanks.

 

[BeefCake 15]

11 years late, literally to the day.

I remember Steve Jobs introducing facetime as an open source standard. we still aren’t there yet but I guess this is a good first step. Another 11 years and maybe it will finally be a standard.

Steve Jobs promised to let competitors use FaceTime. It's time.

We haven't forgotten.

www.cnet.com

Blame the Patent Trolls for this and imessage... https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/10/21131945/apple-virnetx-patent-case-us-appeals-court-lawsuit-legal

 

[xmach]

Great that this is finally happening (more than a decade after Steve Jobs promised FaceTime would be released as an open standard).

Looks like it'll be using WebRTC on the browser/Android side which is a good move. Traditionally FaceTime uses H.264 for video and AAC for audio, and while H.264 is one of the Mandatory to Implement codecs for WebRTC AAC is not (and AFAIK most browsers do not support encoding of AAC). So it's likely that FaceTime is finally starting to support the Opus codec, which should improve audio quality a bit.

Hopefully a future update will bring support for AV1 when it's more widely supported, allowing for completely open source/patent-free communication.

H.264 is pretty old at this point, and FaceTime has supported using the much more efficient H.265 codec since 2014 (via the A8 chip, at least on iDevices). Does the Android/Windows web implantation of FaceTime merely require 264 but support 265, if the underlying hardware encoding capability is present? Or is FaceTime on the web for Android/Windows limited to 264?

 

[jmsnyc]

where is the iMessage web option?

I tried IPhone for a week so far, the lack of easy access to sms via browser is one of a few reasons why I think I am going back to Android