Download was easy and the install of the 39MB was pretty straight forward. Starting facetime was another story. I had to put my apple account in and hit connect, however it did not work till I figured out that my iMac was connected to the internet through Ethernet and wifi at the same time. The browsers have no issue with this but facetime does not like it. I switched Ethernet off and finally could connect. As soon you are connected it shows all your contacts you have either a phone number or an email address assigned to.
In my case 2049 contacts, but some of them are 3 to 6 times in there hence my mobile me account is a little broken after 8 years using 6 different Apples ( I only buy a new Apple every 4 years but we have multiple of them plus iPhones and iPads).
I cleaned up a while ago my iPhone contacts and iMac contacts but somehow facetime still shows duplicates. I should only have 1700 contacts.
The biggest issue is that facetime has no search. It took me a while to find my friend to make a test call. The addresses are sorted by last name but some are sorted wrong.
Since i could not find my friend I opened on the iMac my address book, but facetime is not connected with address book. This would be another nice function.
Then I went to mail but mail is neither connected to facetime, I had to search in facetime till I did find him. With search I mean scroll up and down which goes too fast instead of a slowly accelerating.
Eventually I found him and got his full address with all phone numbers and emails assigned to the contact. I had to think a second which of his phone number is his iPhone number. On my iPhone it clearly indicates the iPhone number, but not in facetime.
The image quality was perfect the sound great, when he turned his phone the image turned on my screen, pretty cool. He could even switch back and forward between his two iPhone cameras, same behavior like doing a call on the iPhone.
He was in a hurry, we could not test if he could call me back from iPhone to iMac. I hope it works fine, because when i started the first time facetime, I had to register my email address to facetime. Apple will send you an email and there you have to click on link. The link guides you to a login page to verify email address and password to your desired account.
I guess my iMac facetime will take the call if he calls me on my email address.
Overall, we can see that facetime is in beta. Search is missing, addresses are somehow messed up and no direct connection to contact book and mail.
I wondering why iChat is still around could they not merge both to one application together? It would just make sense. When facetime is running the camera is automatically used by facetime. I would prefer to run facetime all the time like my other chat and calling ups i have, but the camera should only switch on when i accept a call or when I make a call. Otherwise we don't run facetime all the time and can't get calls. Right now I need to know that I want to make a call and start facetime for this. Same if we want to receive calls we need to know before we get a call that we can start facetime, this does not make sense for me.
Adding facetime to the Apple computers will extend the facetime network by 33 million. Will facetime come for windows?
Facetime for android is not coming soon. A lot of people did write about tango which looks like facetime, but can run on 3G and wifi and is available on iOS and Android OS to make cross OS calls. However tango is not anymore available on iTunes store. Maybe i had bad luck, but you can try, just click here.
Supposedly tango got within one week 1 million times downloaded and 40% of the downloads were in the US.
Now if the iPhone comes to Verizon then there is a small issue (same qik has). No other carrier than ATT allows in the US right now to do voice and data at the same time. Imagine you are in the store and talk to your spouse. Then you want to switch to video call to show her something you see at the store. Works fine with facetime and ATT but not anywhere else.
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