Nicely written article. SharePlay is good. Can be used to help someone
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macOS Monterey 12.1 Beta: How to Share Your Screen on a FaceTime Call
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The weird thing that nobody seems to remember is... You could do a lot of the new features of FaceTime and SharePlay with iChat Theater over a decade ago...
This is a piece of the related guided tour from 2007...
I actually used this quite a lot in high school.
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I wish Apple would hurry up with this… it’s really irritating that FaceTime on macOS cannot receive screen sharing calls from iOS 15.1 ?♂️
Makes tech support calls more difficult (even though screen sharing in FaceTime has been a life saver for less technically adept relatives of mines).
I think this only works Mac to Mac.
Makes tech support calls more difficult (even though screen sharing in FaceTime has been a life saver for less technically adept relatives of mines).
I think this only works Mac to Mac.
Did the FaceTime actually kill that feature? I think, there is still screen share, in MacOS, you can start over shared network, but not sure where else
It's there mainly because the Messages app used to be iChat, which had screen sharing among other things. The iChat parts have slowly disappeared over time.
Ah. That explains why I couldn't find it yesterday on a call! I knew the feature existed, but I couldn't find it for the life of me!
One point that’s not obvious from the article is whether, having shared a screen (one to one), one side can remotely take control of the other screen (PC)? This has been a feature of macOS “Screen Share” for sometime and a feature I’ve found extraordinarily useful in remote support of friends & colleagues.
In macOS Monterey 12.1, which is available in a beta capacity right now, Apple introduced its new SharePlay feature to FaceTime. Previously only available on iPhone and iPad, SharePlay allows you to share your Mac's screen with other people on a FaceTime call, which opens up new possibilities for sharing experiences with friends, family, and co-workers.
Thanks to SharePlay, you and others on the same FaceTime call as you can listen to music or watch TV movies and shows together. You can even share your screen or a specific app window on your Mac's desktop with the people you're chatting with to discuss a piece of work or provide remote tech support, or simply to enjoy looking at a photo album together.
The following steps guide you through the new SharePlay screen sharing feature in FaceTime on macOS Monterey 12.1:
The introduction of SharePlay on Mac also means you can listen to music or watch movies and TV together over FaceTime, and everyone on the call will see the same synced playback and controls.
- Launch FaceTime on your Mac.
Click New FaceTime and add the contacts that you want to share your screen with, then click the FaceTime button. Alternately, select a recent contact to initiate a video call.
When the call has connected, click the SharePlay button in the control overlay.
To share your entire screen or a specific window, click either Window or Screen in the FaceTime menu bar item dropdown. If you chose Window, click the window in question that you want to share.
To stop sharing the window or screen, click Stop Sharing Window/Screen in the FaceTime menu bar item dropdown, where you can also change the window being shared.
When sharing a window, you can also click the SharePlay button in the top-right corner of the window to reveal three options: Stop Sharing Window, Change Shared Window, and Share Entire Display.
In addition to first-party Apple experiences like Apple TV and Apple Music, SharePlay is also compatible with third-party app experiences. Developers have already been building SharePlay experiences for iOS devices, and now they can build SharePlay features into Mac apps as well. For more on what you can do with FaceTime in iOS 15.1 and iPadOS 15.1, we have a dedicated guide that highlights all of the new features.
Note: The SharePlay feature in FaceTime requires macOS Monterey 12.1, which is only available to beta testers as of writing. Expect Monterey 12.1 to be released to all users in late fall 2021.
Article Link: macOS Monterey 12.1 Beta: How to Share Your Screen on a FaceTime Call
The only significant benefit of the FaceTime share seems to be sharing to multiple screens…
I had a son in high school in 2007.
It was integrated into Messages, which is what everyone already has.
You are again posting in these forums instead of finishing your med school. I will stop paying for it just like I promised before. Enough is enough.
I'm familiar with iChat but never really had much opportunity to use it, good to know it had the screen sharing.