I finally got around to giving the iPhone 4's FaceTime video chatting feature a real world test yesterday with none other than music recording legend Seal. While I would have loved to have shared this call with you as a recorded video, I respect Seal's privacy wishes not to show his home here/on the internet. So I'll have to do one later with him when he's on the road. We were both quite impressed with the quality and ease of doing this type of hand held video chat.
The picture quality was great and the audio was crystal clear. As a matter of fact FaceTime is currently working better than the Phone part of the iPhone 4. Sadly, I've dropped more calls on my iPhone 4 in the past two days than I have with all previous generation iPhones that I've owned combined! Granted the Bumper does help, but there are some real issues that Apple needs to work out here. All in all it was a fun chat that lasted just over an hour.
FaceTime doesn't use your cellular minutes
One nice surprise is that while you can initiate a FaceTime chat with someone you're talking with on the phone (provided you are both using iPhone 4's and both on WiFi), the minute that FaceTime Chat is in session you are no longer using your cellular minutes. You can also initiate a FaceTime chat directly with a contact in your Contacts list. Again without using any cellular minutes. So this is going to be AWESOME for my international travels. FaceTime is a winner.
I’m so wanting to get the new iPhone, but can’t convince myself to get a phone that drops calls ‘if I hold it incorrectly’! Here’s hoping Apple fix it quickly!
Wow, thats fantastic. Apple really has brought the scifi era today for all, without the added complexity that Pogue was having with his android to do video conferencing.
Glad to hear it doesn’t use cell minutes. However, for those that don’t have unlimited data plans how much data did that hour call use up?
None since it’s over WiFi ONLY!