This is a honest question, so, what is so good about FaceTime? I have not used an iPhone since version 3GS, so it has been a while, but I understand it is just something similar to whatsapp video calls, google meet, or even zoom?
In my family, it was the best video calling option back in 2010-2012 or so, and there was no competition. So all the older people only know how to use Facetime, and no one is going to go through the trouble of teaching them anything else.
I also have been embarrassed trying to teach Google's solutions and then Google messing with them over and over, so I won't ever try to introduce a Google service again.
I honestly 100% feel like this is the main justification for all changes happening with Google products. I swear to god Google Photos changes the entire layout every year for no reason whatsoever. Whatever they change it to isn't better, just different. But the entire website has to be remodelled and your users have to learn the entire website again because.....someone on the UI team has to justify their 6 digit salary?
The transition from Google Play Music to YouTube Music has been insane. They rebuilt apps seemingly from the ground up, only without a bunch of features. Meanwhile the actual product has, at best, stood still for about two years now. Meanwhile Spotify are running rings around them.
RIP google play music. They had the _best_ recommendations - my suggested new releases would often include a fantastic album by a band I’d never heard of. Since switching to Spotify, i get suggestions for new music by artists I already know I like, but I haven’t found any new artists I love in the same way.
Spotify has atrocious quality, their apps frequently are unresponsive and crash or won't play music often. Just about everyone I know who uses it complains about it from time to time. I haven't tried YT music so I can't compare, just saying.
I have both and really have no issues, just saying. Spotify has the crazy advantage of being on literally every device I own, my car has a Spotify app built-in directly into the dash which makes it crazy convenient, I also have it directly on my TV, on my speaker.....they have built an ecosystem and the ecosystem works great(in my case).
One complaint I have about them is that shuffle is broken. Completely broken. And I know they explained multiple times that it's not, that people are imagining things, but I just don't believe that - it's impossible that in a playlist with 300 songs I keep hearing the same 5 songs over and over and over again!
I have Youtube Music (through Premium) and it's still annoying. Especially when it decides some cover version on Youtube is "for Kids" and then refuses to play in the background. Which is one of the few features actually essential for a music player.
Are they though? I'm actually curious since I don't know the numbers but wouldn't use Spotify if you paid me. I've got nothing against the app, but YouTube Premium gets me ad-free youtube everywhere including casting devices as well as a solid music streaming app. If it weren't for the value of the bundle I'd likely not care as much though.
I’m the same. While I get ad-free YouTube into the bargain I’m not going to switch away. But friends of mine love the highlights, smart playlist stuff Spotify has (to be honest I don’t know the full details). Not to mention that Spotify has an entire API people make apps with, not having that has left me on the outside of some stuff before now.
Do you use it in Chrome? I have tried chrome and Firefox but they both make my fans spin for one video stream and four audio streams. Zoom's native app OTOH seems to handle multiple video streams with ease. This is on macOS.
Google apps use VP9 for video, and Apple didn't expose VP9 decoding acceleration via Video Toolbox up until Big Sur (on models capable doing so, so for Intel chips Kaby Lake and newer). So if you don't run Big Sur on KBL+, it falls back to software.
You say this like Google doesn't have a history of product ADHD where they create new products and cancel them within months. On top of that, they create multiple products for the same functions which means that people get confused about what's appropriate for a situation and what's not. At one point, Google had 3 different video solutions all active at the same time and none of them worked with the others.
I’m sure it does - the technical aspects of Google’s products are fantastic. But I’ve been burned enough times now and I just assume anything interesting and new that Google makes will be rebranded / deleted / shunted into a new department in a few years for no reason. Google duo? What about Allo? Is that gchat? Is it related to hangouts? Or was that just a Google plus thing? Does that even still exist? Is duo it related to Meet? It’s all such a mess.
When Inbox came out I thought “huh this is great. I’d better not get used to it or I’ll be sad when it inevitably gets shut down in a few years”. And sure enough. I dread the family conversations in a few years of “wait where did the icon go?”
I totally agree. I also don't usually trust google to support their 'projects' in long term, but since messages and duo seem to be pre installed in android devices (I think?) I was inclined to try it out. Just hoping that messages and duo are here to stay
One can understand scepticism, but Duo isn't going anywhere. If you need a FaceTime replacement, just use Duo and put all the rest of that mess out of your mind.
> One can understand scepticism, but Duo isn't going anywhere
"In August 2020, it was reported that Google was planning to eventually replace Google Duo with Google Meet, but would continue to support Duo and "invest in building new features" in the long term"
How do you know this? I don't know anyone using it so I've honestly been assuming it's the next to go. I've been using Meet with all my groups as it feels like a corporate solution and thus maybe more stable.
I see from the responses that one thing that is omitted is the clearly higher audio/video quality. I had someone call me on facebook messenger, but had to ask them to call me on facetime purely because of quality, and its not the first time.
As with all Apple products "it just works". I wonder if that may change when it goes to the web.
I've found WA to be more stable on the audio front, and video is great as well. But I have an ancient 6s so I'm not quite putting out the highest quality video.
We defaulted to Facetime until it became obvious that it really couldn't cope with occasional bandwidth glitches.
We switched to WhatsApp and video quality is noticeably more reliable. It does a better job when - for example - someone is outside and the WiFi isn't 100%.
I like it because it has lower a/v latency compared to many other apps, especially over long distances. I think many people don't realize how much it affects the feel of the call.
A fun way to test is counting to 10 by having one person say 1 and the other say 2 as soon as they hear the 1 and so on. You'd be surprised how long it can take to count to 10 on some apps
It's just easier to use for Apple entrenched people. You can automatically see which of your contacts you can call with it and you can do it straight from the contacts app. Plus it will ring iPhone/Mac/iPad. Otherwise it's not considerably different.
That's a bit dismissive. I use android and iOS devices regularly and of all the options facetime is what I use the most for the following reasons: 1) The latency is very good, which is critical for a comfortable video chat experience. 2) Performance and experience is reliable and consistent and it handles less-than-ideal network condition very well. It's the one that I know is most likely to give me an acceptable experience the first time.
Not to be cliche but...it just works. Especially for the older generation who are used to calling people, the UX is seamless.
No links to send (Zoom), no ever-changing products and menus (Google anything), and as few taps as possible/low friction to turn on (Whatsapp is comparable).
The audio and video quality is also pretty damn good.
What others have said. From my experience it's relatively simple, feature limited and dead simple to use on screen/camera containing ios/macos devices. The web version won't have the same get the app nag/confusion as zoom/whatsapp/meet, at least temporarily....
I am not aware of anything in particular. But my threshold of "I will run it in the browser" is fairly low, so if someone wanted to do a FaceTime call with me I would join.
Privacy, and if negatives can be positives, it's not Facebook by association, not Google, and not Zoom. I won't explain why those negatives are negatives because I think it's widely known, but again it relates to privacy.
On an iPhone, the barrier to using facetime is very low, its like making or receiving a video phone call than using a video conferencing app - I'd imagine more elderly or low computer/smart phone literate would can a facetime call to their grandkids than use whatsapp/zoom to do the same
Atleast for me, the experience with Facetime has been less than optimal.
For some reason the call option to some of my contacts is always disabled even though they can call me.
The left hand side of the window in Mac always displays recently called. No idea how to access contacts in the Mac app.
What people said in sibling posts was true before today. Now we'll also have spatial audio, music sharing, video sharing, controls to filter out noise (or not) in real time and other cool features. Although not on the Web I expect.
