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Thank goodness for WIFI facetime

R

Roadrash3

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 28, 2010
14
0
I am so thankful that facetime is on Wifi. There have been a few occassions when i was in a store with no cell service, but was able to get on facetime and talk. The biggest was my one year old son was recently admitted to a childrens hospital, while he was there, my wife was able to call everyday and talk to my other two kids and see them with facetime. In this large hospital and its old brick/concrete building cell service of any kind is impossible. But they have free hospital wifi.If not for this we never would of spoke everyday, let alone allow her to see our other kids. Now if i can just teach her to not hold the phone in her left hand while on the cell network.:)
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

Nice man! I FaceTime with my girlfriend almost every night I work, it's nice as I work 24 hour shifts.
 
So, facetime over WIFI doesn't only transmit video it also transmits voice? I'm assuming another user must have a facetime enabled device in order to do this?
 
quietstormSD said:
So, facetime over WIFI doesn't only transmit video it also transmits voice? I'm assuming another user must have a facetime enabled device in order to do this?
Click to expand...
Correct. Video and audio are part of FaceTime, and since it's over Wi-Fi, there is no extra charge coming from the carrier. For now, in order to make a FaceTime call, both users must have an iPhone 4. Since FaceTime is an open standard, expect it to show up on other non-Apple devices in the future. (ex: Android, Flip devices, etc.) :apple:
 
Roadrash3 said:
I am so thankful that facetime is on Wifi. There have been a few occassions when i was in a store with no cell service, but was able to get on facetime and talk. The biggest was my one year old son was recently admitted to a childrens hospital, while he was there, my wife was able to call everyday and talk to my other two kids and see them with facetime. In this large hospital and its old brick/concrete building cell service of any kind is impossible. But they have free hospital wifi.If not for this we never would of spoke everyday, let alone allow her to see our other kids. Now if i can just teach her to not hold the phone in her left hand while on the cell network.:)
Click to expand...

hope your kid will be alright soon :)
 
awwwwwe good to hear facetime is a great asset for you. It's a great fuzzy feeling to hear someone speak about the iPhones features that are working great and have others joyfully discussing the topic.

A breath of fresh air.
 
1. I hope your son will be ok.

2. I think Facetime definitely has great perks. Now I just need to convince people I know to get iphone 4s haha.
 
I love face time! I am traveling this week and have my iPhone 4, iPad 3G, and unfortunately my huge work Dell. I used to carry my MBP so I could iChat with the wife and kids but since I have to use the Dell at this new job the iPhone really helps keep in contact with the family. I wish there was a camera connection to the iPad so I could use it instead of the iPhone but I will take what I can get. Now if they could just make face time part of iChat I would really be happy!
 
Awesome to hear that facetime is working well for you. My wife is going away for nearly a week and we are planning on picking up two white iphone 4's before she leaves so that we can see each other while she is gone.

I do have a question for the OP (or anyone who can answer). While using facetime is there a noticeable difference in the video quality between the front and rear camera? or is it basically the same since it is streaming over wifi and limited in resolution?
 
Knowimagination said:
Awesome to hear that facetime is working well for you. My wife is going away for nearly a week and we are planning on picking up two white iphone 4's before she leaves so that we can see each other while she is gone.

I do have a question for the OP (or anyone who can answer). While using facetime is there a noticeable difference in the video quality between the front and rear camera? or is it basically the same since it is streaming over wifi and limited in resolution?
Click to expand...

Rear facing cam will have the best resolution. However, the front cam is no slouch either. The quality depends on the wifi connection as well as lighting.

I have never had an unbearable face time yet. They are all clear, crisp and really nice.
 
I'm glad you are finding it helpful. I really like it, too. I hope you child gets well soon.
 
How do you initiate the call without a cell signal? I know facetime uses wifi and converts to a voip call, but don't you need a cellular signal to initiate the call?
 
Hankster said:
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Nice man! I FaceTime with my girlfriend almost every night I work, it's nice as I work 24 hour shifts.
Click to expand...

I do the exact same thing. Every other day during 24hr shift (military firefighter) I facetime the wife to see her and my 12 day old daughter.

Perfect timing for the iP4, deploy to Al Udeid in sept and they have wifi over there too!
 
It's probably for the best it's wifi only.... could you imagine the idiots using facetime while driving (and also while putting on their makeup or shaving or whatever)?

I know there are ways around it but the average user is going to be limited to wifi in the home or at the cafe, etc. The roads are safe, for now.
 
Hankster said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

Nice man! I FaceTime with my girlfriend almost every night I work, it's nice as I work 24 hour shifts.
Click to expand...

this takes phone sex to a complete new level right? :D:apple::D
 
To Roadrash3, I hope your son is out of the hospital real soon. My prayers go to him and your family.

For GregM3 and others with iPhone 4 and an iPad with wifi alone or with 3G.

Has anyone tried to use the Camera A and Camera B apps to do facetime on an iPad? It may not work but essentially the Camera A app is on the iPhone and the Camera B app is on the iPad. This allows you to control the taking of a photo on the iPhone from the iPad. It would be neat to see if this could work to do facetime on the iPad.

Both apps are of course in the App Store one is about 99 cents the other is free. I've played with the system and for taking photos it does work quite well.
 
I think thatFaceTime is simply amazing. Sure I've been skyping for years but there is something wonderfully extra about holding the phone at any angle and watching my wife and two year old girl crowd together in the phone to see daddy while he is at work. I absolutely love it!
 
Our extended family is constantly using facetime. I'm surprised how many happenings and events are great for showing on facetime. From work done on one of our houses to the hawk that ate the chicks in the nest out back, there seems to always be something to show.

(we didn't show the hawk actually eating the chicks. Just him sitting in the tree afterwards. My wife had to stop screaming first.)

Bottomline, facetime is huge for us.
 
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