FaceTime - page 10

Although Apple rumor-mongers can rarely agree on anything, two things that most of the supposed tipsters and leaksters have managed to agree on is that the iPad 2 will be FaceTime compatible and have a higher resolution display.

Some files in the new iOS 4.3 SDK seemingly confirm the FaceTime claims, as it includes iPad-specific graphic files for the shutter screen seen in the iPhone and iPod Touch, which implies, at the very least, a new backwards facing camera. Interesting, but a no-brainer: there’s no way Apple’s going to leave FaceTime capability out of the iPad 2.

More surprising than the FaceTime implications of those icons, though, are their resolution: 1024 x 768. In other words, the current iOS 4.3 SDK implies that the FaceTime-capable iPad 2 will have the same resolution as the current iPad.

We’ll all be videoconferencing like crazy in 2012, predicts Barclay’s analyst Ben Reitzes.

By the end of 2012, Apple’s installed base of FaceTime devices will exceed 200 million, Reitzes predicts.

That’s based on more than 85 million FaceTime-enabled devices by the end of 2011:

• 50 million FaceTime iPhones
• 15 million FaceTime iPods
• 12 million FaceTime Macs
• 10 million FaceTime iPads

In 2012, Apple’s video conferencing platform will only gather momentum, driven by what he’s calling the “FaceTime networking effect.”

“While Android and competitive devices either have or are working toward incorporating a similar feature, we believe this particular feature benefits from Apple’s vertically integrated model,” Reitzes said. “Experiences across disparate hardware platforms tend to vary–with Apple’s one of the most reliable in our trials. Also, this feature allows Apple to mine the millions of iTunes users who have Apple ID’s–and provide an attractive feature across devices that can be put into use immediately. We believe the ‘FaceTime networking effect’ could enhance a halo effect on Macs and iPads as the feature becomes available.”

AllThingsD: 200 Million FaceTime-Enabled Devices in 2012?

Without a front facing camera, there’s not much an iPhone 3GS can do with FaceTime, even if it could be be enabled… but when has the mere logistics of a hack gotten in the way of the jailbreak community? Here it is: FaceTime on the iPhone 3GS, courtesy of iPhoneIslam.

Even when it debuted at the time, the iPad was conspicuous for its lack of forward-facing camera. Apple had obviously considered it: the iPad’s frame actually contains a hollow in which a standard iSight camera fits perfectly. Why didn’t they pull the trigger? Hindsight being 20/20, it’s pretty obvious now that Apple did not choose to install a camera in the first iPad because they hadn’t yet readied their FaceTime video chat standard: it would be stupid to supply hardware in the iPad that only Apple’s competitors were ready, at the time, to capitalize upon.

Now that FaceTime is out for the iPhone, iPod Touch and Mac, the iPad is obviously the next in line. Now a new report suggests that existing iPhone camera supplier Omnivision will also be tasked with creating the iPad’s camera.

FaceTime for Mac is pretty cool, but it lacks spice. As Chatroulette amply proved, the thril of cold video calling random strangers is spicy indeed. Who will pick up? A nose-picking teenage girl? A throbbing erection with googly eyes glued upon the glans? A foul-mouthed puppet? If only FaceTime could match that degree of titillation!

Well, now it can, thanks to an enterprising programmer named Zach Holman, who has thrown together Facelette. It’s essentially Chatroulette for FaceTime, pairing two random people together through a FaceTime connection.

For a few hours yesterday, the Internet lit up with reports originating from Macwelt.de that there was a serious security hole in the FaceTime for Mac beta.

Frankly, calling it a “security hole” seemed even at the time a tad hyperbolic. Basically, the hole in FaceTime for Mac beta meant that once a user had logged into his account, that user’s AppleID and password could be altered within the app by anyone with physical access to the computer, without any other security checks.

So this is what happens when you open FaceTime on your Mac, use it to call FaceTime on your iPhone, and then point the camera on one towards the camera on the other: infinite FaceTime!

Coming soon: infinite FaceTime inside infinite screensharing. Go on, I dare you.

This dream is collapsing. As long as we’ve got the timings right, we can ride the wake-ups all the way back to the real world.

When the iPhone 4 launched in the Middle East — specifically in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar — it did so without support for FaceTime. Needless to say, this prompted some speculation. Why would Apple have dropped theFaceTime capability only from Middle Eastern iPhone 4? Was it a carrier restriction… or was Apple trying to sidestep Middle Eastern governments getting interested in regulating the new video chat standard?

It now seems like the real explanation probably has more to do with carrier restrictions than anything else. According to iRamadah, FaceTime works in the Middle East on the new iPod Touches, despite the fact that even on the iPhone 4, FaceTime is a WiFi-only standard. Seems at this point more likely that the carriers kicked for whatever reason than anything to do with Big Brother.

Although the iPhone 4 is superior hardware to even the latest iPod Touch, the fourth-gen Touch does have a leg up on its sibling in at least one area: making FaceTime calls. While the iPod Touch’s FaceTime app makes it easy to initiate video calls through its built-in app, the iPhone makes you place a voice call first.

FaceNow levels the playing field between the fourth-generation iPod Touch and iPhone 4. It’s simplicity itself. Just open up the application, add a contact from your address book and you’re ready to make a FaceTime video call to them: the app will at that point bypass all the usual steps and just make a straight video connection, no voice call required.

Interested? FaceNow is available on the App Store right now, for the attractive price of jack squat.

As the AppleTV slides through mail slots throughout the country, enterprising hackers are already hard at work plumbing the secrets of the firmware. They’ve already confirmed that the new AppleTV runs on iOS, and even spotted secret reference to two previously unseen iPhone models, and now we have two more tidbits to ponder.

The first is reference within the AppleTV’s IPSW to the future possibility of Facetime support.

China wasn’t the only country to get the iPhone 4 this weekend. Denizens of both Qatar and the United Arab Emirates also got their hands on Cupertino’s latest handset, packed with all the features separating it from its predecessor the 3GS save one: FaceTime.

According to The National, iPhone 4s sold through UAE carriers Etisalat and du as well as those sold by Vodafone in Qatar are missing the FaceTime software, although the forward-facing camera is obviously still there. According to the carriers, they’ve had no hand in stripping the video chat feature out, and they are petitioning Apple to reinstate Facetime soon.

With few exceptions, the best way to predict what Apple is going to do is to look at what they’ve already done, which is why it’s best to take this rumor reported by Apple Insider with a grain of salt: they claim a FaceTime-equipped iPad will be coming in time for the holidays.

Apple Insider, on their part, realize that that their source — “a person with proven knowledge of Apple’s future product plans” — is giving them insider intel that defies Apple’s history of yearly generational cycles in their iPod and iOS line-up, but claim nonetheless that “there [is] an ambitious push inside Apple to verify the refresh for a possible launch ahead of this year’s holiday shopping season,” and that the testing of the FaceTime-equipped iPad has already reached the advanced testing stage.

That the next iPad will boast at least a forward facing camera for FaceTime calling is a given… but releasing it less than a year after the first iPad seems like an invitation for customer backlash.

Perhaps recognizing this, Apple Insider’s report ends up contradicting itself later, on, saying that the FaceTime-equipped iPad will arrive “no later” than the first quarter of 2011. Given that the first quarter ends in March, that’s close enough to a year after the iPad’s debut that it seems unlikely that Apple will meaningfully break their historic product cycle for a second-gen iPad, no matter how much they want FaceTime to be the de facto standard for video calling.

Like the iPhone before it, the iPod Touch is now a a haptic handset for the teledildonically inclined.

It appears that a new hardware feature in the iPod Touch is a small, whirring engine capable of delivering a vibrating alert when a FaceTime call is incoming to your pocket.

Pretty neat. It is, of course, unknown whether or not there will be an API call allowing app store developers to trigger the vibrating functionality at will. Here’s hoping: putting aside any reference to possible pelvic-grinding perversions, rumble functionality would be a very welcome addition to the iPod Touch for gaming alone.

[via Mac Rumors

Ruh roh! It looks like Apple has an excuse to shutter all the front facing cameras on every iPhone 4 sold after last week. Apple’s notorious grip on it’s no porn in iOS apps policy won’t protect anyone from the adult entertainment industries interest in making tons of money with the iPhone 4’s FaceTime video chat feature.