FaceTime was one of the many new features to the iPhone 4 (as well as the iPod Touch 4G and iPad 2). It has also made its way to Mac OS X via a stand-alone application. It’s been almost a year since this feature was unveiled. How often do people use it? What was their most memorable moment?
When I first received my iPhone 4, I loved making FaceTime calls with people. It was easy, and the performance was great. As the months went by, I started to use FaceTime less and less. The last time I made a FaceTime call was about 2 weeks ago. I (personally) haven’t had the desire to make any FaceTime calls since then.
I’m curious to see how many people actually use FaceTime, how often they use it, and what their most memorable moment was.
For me, it was FaceTiming over 3G while on a roller coaster at Disney’s California Adventure in California (video below; it’s lame, but neat, and thanks to @branden3112 for quickly recording it) last year. The day after I purchased my iPhone 4 (purchased on August 1, the day that the JailbreakMe.com jailbreak was released, so it was a nice coincidence), an updated version of MyWi was released, which allowed users to use 3G instead of WiFi for a number of different things, including FaceTime calls. What better way to try out FaceTime over 3G than to ride a roller coaster? I did just that. It was a fun (but risky) experiment. Fortunately, holding an iPhone while on an amusement park ride isn’t difficult at all.
So, what’s your most memorable FaceTime moment? How often do you use it? Let us know in the comments below.
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Brian Sweet is a young 20-year old student who loves technology (PCs, Macs, iPhones) and auto racing. Brian also writes for JailbreakZone, and is the host of the This Week in iPhone podcast (not affiliated with TWiT). Follow Brian on Twitter (the quickest way to get in touch), or visit his website.
73 responses to “FaceTime: Do You Use It? [Video]”
I use FaceTime whenever my satellite dish gets knocked out of alignment by bad weather. I aim my iSight camera at my TV showing no signal, climb the ladder with my iPhone calling my MacBook on FaceTime (attached to my arm with one of those running straps) and adjust the dish ever so slightly until I get a picture on my TV via my iPhone.
My parents both bought iPod touches just for FaceTime. My dads a trucker and at 90% of truck stops have Wifi. Perfect for talking when hes on the other side of the country.
Well, since my girlfriend and I are separated by the Atlantic I use FaceTime at least 5 times a week and usually for 2-3 hours each time. So I do love that feature and especially the fact that it’s free and super easy :)
Everyone I want to talk to uses Skype, even if they have a Mac. Why didn’t Apple buy Skype? That was dumb not to.
Why did my comment get trashed? I have used FaceTime once. Otherwise I use skype which apple should have bought.
I have a 2 year old son who likes to FaceTime with his cousins and grandma as often as possible. So 3-5 times a week, for the last 6 months. Just bought an iPad 2 to increase the number of FaceTime capable devices in the household, and the larger screen means we can all see what’s going on without banging our heads together over an iPhone.
Haha very creative! +1. :)
Gotta love having FiOS so I don’t have to struggle with that, though. :)
Hahahaha that is absolutely superb! I was laughing out loud watching this particularly the guy who sounds like hes in pain lol.
Personally I hardly use FaceTime and when I do imtend to use Skype
I’ve used it twice with my brother. It’s a novelty, nothing more. Now if only Apple would release those standards docs to the public like they promised they would….
I use FaceTime everyday to talk to my girlfriend. It is the next best thing to her actually being in front of me.
No, I don’t have any friends sadly.
I use it all the time. It saves money on international phone call for me and I get to see my family oversea. It’s a great feature and it’s very easy to use.
It’s more than a novelty. It’s the future. It’s amazing, I use it multiple times on a daily basis, From my iPad and iPhone and MacBook pro alike. I use it to talk to my girlfriend, and on occasion to my best friend. Honestly It’s one of the best features that apple has universally added into it’s product line, and I hope they only move that forward from this point on.
We use it at home; works better than skype over wifi for some reason.
I’ve used it maybe 5 times since I got my phone. A few times with my mom and a couple with a friend.
No, I use Tango (when it works) because FT only works when you have a WiFi signal. Or I use Skype – more reliable that Tango. And besides, more than half of my iPhone owning friends don’t turn on the FT option in their settings!
FaceTime is a great tool however it will remain a novelty, or at least chained to cell phone companies until it is capable of audio-only calls without home button gimmicks.
I use it almost everyday, mostly mac to iphone
I used to use facetime everyday for 1 hour with my wife , since the release iphone4 (MIFI 3g) >macbook air (home) due their low data usage, works perfect like in heaven, much better than skype.
But 2 months ago when i change the aebs to a different router, ( need to use a router with virtual server ) my facetime descend to hell.
I made every single portforward possible ,look for every solution on the web ,but facetime decide
not to work anymore or work horrible bad.
mac > air > iphone4 > and vice versa simple “it just doesnt work with this router”
The problem is with facetime because skype, ichat , viber, etc all of them working well , why not facetime.
Apple made im special ? to me facetime s”””ks
My solution now is using ichat mac > mac ,with a small software named entonnoir to control the data usage in the mifi, because the ichat limitation to 100mb/s seems it doesnt limit anything.
My son calls me on Facetime just about every morning when I get into the office. Best part of my day. :)
i would use it more if it was also over 3G and not just WiFi :/
Jailbreak.
I live in Australia, while the rest of my family is in Dubai, everyone in my family has an iPhone 4, and we’d all use facetime fairly often if it was on the phones. Sadly, Apple chose not to include FaceTime on the iPhones sold in the middle east, so no FaceTime for us. Skype works better on our Macbooks, and we use Tango for video calls on our iPhones.
I’ve never made a FT call.
I have one friend with an iPhone 4, but I use Facetime anytime I want to reach him and he uses it to reach me at home. I like it so much I try to talk my friends into downloading it, just so I can use it more often.
I’ve never used it and don’t have any desire to do so. I’m not keen on Skype, either.
I use it to chat with my kids, while I am at work. Or to let chat the kids with their grandparents. They love it!
No doubt FaceTime is super easy to use. However it would have taken the world by storm if they had released a version for windows/android/linux as well. I don’t use it now because more then half of my friends and family members are so unfortunate to don’t own apple devices.
FaceTime = fail. they should have built it in to iChat on the Mac, and it has to be cross-platform and cross-phone compatible to be of any real use.
I use FaceTime on average of three times a week. I’m from Brasil, went to college in Chicago, and am now moving to Dallas. One of my closest friends just moved to London, and we FaceTime while I’m at work (secretly of course), but my favorite is watching the NBA playoffs with him over FaceTime. It makes it seem like we’re still doing it together like we used to. FaceTime connection is better than Skype too.
About a month ago, I was in Geneva for a meeting. I found a Starbucks, registered for the free WiFi, and had a FaceTime VTC with the wife and kids back in Miami (iPad 2 to iPad 2, in case you were wondering).
Worked like a charm. I was pretty amazed how far we’ve progressed technologically in such a short time. I remember setting up my first VTC systems in the early 1990’s — $65,000 hardware endpoints, dedicated circuits, flaky behavior.
Nope, none of my friends are using it.
My son, my parents, and myself use it every week. My Dad (who could never figure out a computer) loves his iPhone. Whenever he calls me, he uses FaceTime. My son also uses it to communicate with me at work or his Grandparents.
I have had very little success while trying to use FaceTime. I am totally interested in using it, although having someone else whom has an apple product and ready – willing – able to also use FaceTime has been nearly impossible for me.
Oh yeah…my nephews (who live a state away) use it to talk to my son. They probably use it once a week.
ah no. we used it once, at the apple store after setting up the phones. really isn’t useful at all.
i’ve made 2 facetime calls since i got my ipod in november, and they were both to test it out with someone. if im on a wifi network, i usually have my laptop with me, which i’d rather use to video chat instead of the 3.5″ screen