Just Tried Facetime

Just wanted to say my wife & I tried the Facetime Beta on our Macbook/Macbook Pro notebooks. Not much to say...other than it works...and seems pretty neat. Like "Photo Booth" and other "chat" programs...your computers camera turns on as soon as you launch the Facetime application.

A little bit of setup is needed if you don't have an Apple ID...and adding contacts to your Apple "Address Book" (which is where Facetime pulls contact info from). Your computer also needs to be running OS 10.6.4.

Give it a try if interested.

- Nick

Coolio!

Are there any noticeable differences between the "Facetime Experience" and video iChat? I've used the video iChat application a few times to talk to relatives over the holidays and found it to work well enough. Any thoughts?
Thanks!

XJ-linux said:

Are there any noticeable differences between the "Facetime Experience" and video iChat? I've used the video iChat application a few times to talk to relatives over the holidays and found it to work well enough. Any thoughts?
Thanks!

Click to expand...

I'm going to try iChat today...and see how iChat & Facetime compare.

- Nick

I have always wondered what is better?

Skype or iChat?

Skype always wins out because alot of friends of mine abroad are working on windows and cannot use iChat..

Is facetime better than skype video calls?

It's been a couple years since I've used either Skype or iChat. Tried them out with a friend on the East coast. iChat froze after a minute or two and was kinda choppy when it was working. Skype worked just fine, no issues. But maybe iChat has improved a great deal since then. ??? I hope so.

Forget where I read it but someone suggested implementing FaceTime on Macs into iChat to make it a calling option within iChat. Oh, and BTW... engadget reported yesterday that they were able to FaceTime and iChat simultaneously. Not sure if they did this with different contacts or the same person with both apps. But I thought that was pretty cool.

I downloaded FaceTime beta for the Mac yesterday and tried it out calling an iPhone 4 and it worked very well!... very slick and the quality is good! - very happy user here!

So here's a question. I use iChat to visit with my Sister and parents who use AOL IM-video-messenger-whatever-it's-called. Does FaceTime for Mac work only with FaceTime for Mac/FaceTime for iOS? Or does it work with other video chat applications? Mostly just curious as iChat works well enough for me right now. Thanks.

XJ-linux said:

So here's a question. I use iChat to visit with my Sister and parents who use AOL IM-video-messenger-whatever-it's-called. Does FaceTime for Mac work only with FaceTime for Mac/FaceTime for iOS? Or does it work with other video chat applications? Mostly just curious as iChat works well enough for me right now. Thanks.

Click to expand...

only works with FaceTime as far as I can tell - be that on the Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch etc..

this is a slightly unrelated question..but since some of you have tried calling an iphone maybe you would know...does the phone being called get charged for the video chat?

iPhone FaceTime only works over WiFi so no, it does not get data charges.

I'm trying to figure out what the need or advantage of using Facetime is vs using Skype for mobile situations *which I've used with 3g with Nimbuzz* ? I don't really see the get here. All I see is Apple wanting to compete with existing and proven to work technologies, and not getting very far because mobile users are limited to using FT via wifi. Sure, hardcore Apple fans will use it because it's an Apple product, but a better product?

And why release the software version for Macs only at this point if a very large percentage of iPhone/iTunes users are using Windows. Would it not be smarter to release a Windows version as well ?

Doug

I personally think limiting FT to WiFi just now is a wise move as video calling (even on 3G) isn't up to scratch yet.. As for Skype - then this is ok apart from busy times where it lags and becomes choppy.. FT is a far better and slicker app on Mac and iPhone IMO

Doug b said:

I'm trying to figure out what the need or advantage of using Facetime is vs using Skype for mobile situations *which I've used with 3g with Nimbuzz* ?

Click to expand...

FaceTime generally has better quality than Skype. And Skype actually has decided to start blocking Nimbuzz so that won't work much longer

Skype Blocks Nimbuzz, Clarifies Mobile Phone Rules | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

And why release the software version for Macs only at this point if a very large percentage of iPhone/iTunes users are using Windows. Would it not be smarter to release a Windows version as well ?

Click to expand...

Because it's a beta? And same reason every other piece of Apple software started on the Mac? Maybe it never will be on Windows, maybe it will be a way for Apple to sell more Macs?

I think the answer to why FaceTime isn't part of iChat is because it turned out that porting iChat to Windows was too difficult, so they started over.

FaceTime will, I suspect, become THE way to videochat once its out for PCs as well.

At present, however, Facetime is:

a. Even easier (and with WAY-HEY-HEY better quality) to use than Skype.
b. lacking some features it really, really needs.
c. not as advanced as either iChat or Skype, but whoever thought the vertical view was a good idea for chatting was a GENIUS. Most people's faces are oval-shaped, and look better in a vertical box (an insight that applies to mirrors as well).
d. very taxing on my 2007 BlackBook's processor (but it still works very well!).
e. rapidly selling me on getting an iPhone 4 now whereas before I didn't feel a rush.

I had just made an account with this forum because I am totally off because my Macbook Pro is not connecting with Iphone 4 of one of my friends. I had done everything including, restart, deleting and downloading the app again, etc... but no success... Can you provide some hints guys, I appreciate if you can help me to resolve my problem. By the way, my friend who has the iphone 4 told me that he received a call from ipod successfully. So, I suspect the problem is in my Mac!
Thanks,

No, the problem probably isn't your Mac. It's probably your router.

But just to be sure ... you downloaded and installed FaceTime for Mac on your machine, which is up to current specs, right? You're not trying to use iChat for this, right?

how I can change the phone number in FaceTime