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You Can Join FaceTime Calls on an Xbox but Not an Apple TV
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Before COVID I would say it's a niche case but more and more I find multiple people (especially family) wanting to share a screen to make video calls.
The xbox doesn't have one either, but you can connect one to it (or if you have an old Xbox One, you can use Kinect)Am I missing something? There's no camera on an AppleTV.
Kinect don't work with the Series X and Series S, but they do work with the Xbox One X and Xbox One S.
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Tomorrow’s lead story: “Apple Microfiber cleaning cloth does not support FaceTime calls.”
No, it's not an S. That's what the poster said. It's a series S. Completly different hardware generation.
All I said was that the S and X support Kinect, and they do. Microsoft's next-gen consoles, the series S and X don't. Blame Microsoft for being terrible at branding.
Pretty sure this same analogy was used when the original iPhone was released.
“Why would someone want to watch movies on their telephone? This is like saying you can play video games on your refrigerator.”
ITT: Internet neckbeards outraged! Quick to defend trillion dollar company over lack of oft requested features by normal people.
How many “normal people” have asked to make FaceTime calls on their Apple TV? Do you have data to back up your claim? Or just the usual name calling?
Bad analogy. IPhones don’t weigh 50 pounds, and people don’t watch them from across the room. Now, how about you explain why making a FaceTime call on your Apple TV is preferable to making it on your iPhone, iPad, computer, or similar device?
Well, because the TV often is right in front of you. We all spend a lot of time in front of our televisions. So why not FaceTime family and friends when needed from the comfort of your couch/living room. No need to walk over and get your laptop or phone. We all spend time with people in our homes… so why not virtually. Apple TV should have this functionality in the future. For privacy the camera module could slide up and down, and have some sort of light indicator.
I'm not OP but I can think of use cases from the past two years that would survive post-pandemic. Something like grandparents wanting to chat with their grandkids on their birthday. My parents never figured out Facetime with multiple people. But even when you do, if there are multiple people in the same room you end up getting mic feedback. Facetime on a phone usually ended up with the phone getting passed around to individual people and never the entire group.
All to say, Facetime on an AppleTV could be easier for groups of people whereas Facetime on phones seems to be more oriented towards individuals. Facetime on AppleTV would simply be a cheaper way to Facetime on a big screen than using a Mac.
I realize that I’m kinda unusual, but I suspect that a growing number of millennials are like me. I don’t actually own a “proper” TV, and, if I do buy one, it’s likely to be a fairly small display (no larger than a “small” TV). I’m just not interested in movies/tv enough to justify owning a large screen TV (larger than a computer monitor), and, as a single person, the TV screen doesn’t have the family gathering location function for me that it seems to for most families. (And perhaps the TV screen shouldn’t be considered an ideal gathering point, as interactive things on the TV tend to be solo activities, while most group activities tend to be very passive activities.) For a lot of millennials, their phones become their TV, and for their kids, their parents’ phones become significant entertainment devices despite owning a TV. I’m just not sure that the TV is a focal point for as many people these days as you think it is, and that might actually be the reason Apple seems to ignore the Apple TV.
Just because it’s a TV doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be used for FaceTime. Weight and distance from screen is definitely not a good argument against it.
Personally, I’ve connected my Mac and USB webcam to my TV to share meals with my family halfway across the country. It worked great.
From conference rooms to whole family calls, there’s reasonable uses for FaceTime and Center Stage on Apple TV.
It's quite integrated into iPhones, so easy to use if both have iPhones. My son and I use it to call each other sometimes instead of just voice. But yeah, I also use zoom and whatsapp, and in the past have used viber, skype, etc etc.
The one I don't get people using is iMessage. Especially since it has a tendency to lose messages, which is hard to detect, as the receiver doesn't know they were supposed to receive one, and the sender doesn't know the other didn't receive it. We discovered it happening within our family, as some important messages went missing, and then we realised that messages going missing was happening quite often, so have all turned it completely off.
Don‘t be disappointed about the missing camera … look forward instead to the possibility of being able to follow MLB next season on AppleTV Plus. The latter is where the focus of innovation is placed — a truly unique addition to the AppleTV World.Am I missing something? There's no camera on an AppleTV.