AT&T announced on its consumer blog today that it will finally allow FaceTime over cellular available to all customers on a tiered data plan, after previously offering it first only to those with a Mobile Share plan and then later to those with both LTE devices and tiered plans. Took them long enough. → Read More
AT&T definitely didn’t win any fans with its initial reaction to Apple’s decision to open up FaceTime video chat services to cellular networks. Now, though, it seems like the carrier may be making FaceTime available even to users on grandfathered unlimited data plans as the service begins to roll out live, though whether that’s an intentional move remains to be seen. → Read More
Last month, open Internet advocacy groups threatened to file complaint against AT&T with the Federal Communications Commission due to AT&T’s decision to limit the use of Apple’s FaceTime video calling application. AT&T said that users wouldn’t be able to use FaceTime over its cellular network, unless they were also on the carrier’s Mobile Share Plans. Well, good news, folks: AT&T… → Read More
AT&T announced early on that users wouldn’t be able to use FaceTime over cellular connections on its network, for subscribers who aren’t on the carrier’s Mobile Share Plans. The decision was obviously not popular with users; it took long enough for Apple to make FaceTime even available over cellular data connections, and AT&T subscribers were hearing they’d be left out. But they aren’t the… → Read More
AT&T ruffled more than a few feathers last week when it announced that only customers on the carrier’s new Mobile Share plans would be able to use iOS 6′s FaceTime over 3G feature. Almost immediately, people began to wonder whether or not this course of action put AT&T at odds with the FCC’s stance on net neutrality.
The company waited until today to issue an official response … → Read More
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson took the stage this afternoon at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, where he was asked about a recent report in 9toMac that AT&T might charge customers extra if they want to use FaceTime over 3G cellular networks (a feature that was announced for iOS 6).
The company previously offered a generic “we’ll share more information with our customers… → Read More
When Apple announced at WWDC that FaceTime would (officially) work over cellular data networks, the company deftly avoided offering up much in the way of details. Now that iOS 6 beta 3 has been released into the wild though, a clearer picture of how Apple and their carrier partners will handle the situation is beginning to emerge.
The folks at 9to5mac discovered last night that attempting to… → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Michael Arrington, Dan Farber, Robert Scoble, and Steve Gillmor — enjoyed @scobleizer’s FaceTime tour of Florida’s abandoned Kennedy Space Center in the aftermath of the last shuttle launch. The countdown clock sat frozen amid a sea of media trailers and the huge Twitter Live Assembly building. No, wait; that was where FriendFeed stood until Google + was launched last… → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, John Borthwick, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — joined the Circle Game as channelled by Joni Mitchell and Tom Rush. Google + seems to be a hit, which means it is soon to reach the critical mass where all social software must graduate from high school to beyond. For now, the service appears like a broader reimplementation of Friendfeed, which some of us felt… → Read More
The news from NBC/Universal/Comcast is that the cable giant has finally made deals with both ABC and Fox to carry selected shows on their on-demand service. This is big news for the iPad set, because all four major broadcast networks are now available in a single service, on the iPad, without Flash.
Across town we hear talk of hardware acceleration linking up with Android to make Flash finally… → Read More
Much has been made of the iPad’s role as a laptop replacement, but for me that war is over. The phone is increasingly a remote controller for the larger screen — I use its Personal Hotspot tethering to broker FaceTime calls on the move, and push notification as pointers into Twitter and the Web document store. Chatter provides a corporate firewalled collaboration space, and I spend the rest of… → Read More
When Apple first announced its video calling application FaceTime on June 7, 2010 at the WWDC event, in conjunction with the iPhone 4, it quickly became apparent that there was a potential trademark conflict with a company called FaceTime Communications.
But Apple struck a deal with the company to transfer said trademark over to them, and FaceTime Communications subsequently changed its company… → Read More
One of the best built-in features of the iPhone 4 is FaceTime, the video calling feature that lets you see who you are talking to by using the cameras on both phones. But it only works over WiFi and if both callers own an iPhone 4. Perhaps those limitations are why an app called Tango is the seventh most popular social networking app right now (iTunes link).
Tango lets you make video calls not… → Read More
Is anyone else curious as to why Apple decided to make an entirely new FaceTime app instead of adding support to iChat? Lets look at why Apple could have done this. So far, FaceTime for Mac isn’t even what I’d expect from Apple; it has little flaws that lead me to think it was rushed—more on that in a bit. → Read More
http://player.ooyala.com/player.swf?embedCode=M4YnNyMTpSL_Pr4Ncg1PZoRl0Q5Maefh&version=2 This is clearly a beta product. It’s very non-intuitive and the contacts system is ridiculous. Regardless, it worked well enough from iPhone to desktop and from desktop to desktop. Now we just have to figure out where iChat is headed. → Read More
Apple took just a few quick minutes during its Back To The Mac event today to announce Facetime on OS X. The release seems only natural as most Macs have had an integrated web camera for years and this type of vertical integration is Apple’s claim to fame. Of course they were going to bring the service full circle and the only question was really when it would launch.
Steve Jobs didn’t spend that… → Read More
Apple is busy running through all the new bells and whistles of iLife. It’s actually quite boring. But if you look close when the demo machine shows its dock, there’s a Facetime icon present, which seems to state that video chat service is coming to a Mac near you real soon.
Now this isn’t official yet. Steve-O hasn’t came out and said “Apple is adding Facetime to Macs” yet. But he will. → Read More
This just in: the new iPod Touch with front-facing camera (aka the iPhone Lite) has a built-in vibrating motor for notifications, including silent call notifications. Why is this important? Well, presumably the iPod Touch is now a Facetime phone and definitely needs new ways to interact with the user. I’m personally very excited. → Read More
Apple has an event on the books for this coming Wednesday and it’s widely expected that Steve-O will announce new iDevices, specifically an iOS-version of the Apple TV and new iPods. Most of the pre-iTV news is purely speculative as we really don’t know much about it, although it should hit at a lower price point and a new cloud-based iTunes should debut alongside the device. Forget about the … → Read More
My mom totally wants one of these. My mom doesn’t know smartphones, but she wants Facetime. The same woman who used a Motorola RAZR for most of the last decade now wants to drop – or, more precisely, wants me to drop – $299 for a new iPhone 4 so she can see the grandkids. Why? Because it seems like magic to her that she can see live video of the grandkids without having to make… → Read More
Apple rumors are fly left and right these days. That must mean something is happening real soon. MacMagazine just got word from one of their reliable sources that an Apple event is on the books for sometime between August 14-16, making Monday the 16th a shoe-in. They say the event is centered around both the new FaceTime-equipped iPod touch and the iPad’s iOS4 update. But as with most Apple… → Read More
Wondered what jailbreaking was good for? If you’re using an iPhone 4 you can download My3G, a program that convinces iOS that it is using WiFi when it is really using 3G. This, in turn, lets you run Facetime over 3G.
The app costs $3.99 and is available in the Rock app depository. → Read More
If you have an iPhone 4, you’ve probably had this problem: you really want to use FaceTime, but there are simply not a lot of opportunities to use it. Sure, one problem is that both parties need an iPhone 4 currently. But perhaps even more annoying is that you have no way of knowing which of your friends with iPhone 4s are actually connected to WiFi so they can use FaceTime. That’s where a new… → Read More
Yesterday, I broke down Apple’s minute-long FaceTime commercial for iPhone 4, noting how it seemed almost as if Don Draper from the hit AMC show Mad Men had created it. Now Apple has four other 30-second spots for the iPhone 4 that it has just put into rotation on national television. And yes, they’re all about FaceTime too.
The four spots are titled, “Smile,” “Meet Her,” “Haircut,” and “Big… → Read More
The other day I was talking to an old friend. Not only is this friend outside the tech sphere, he’s just about as opposite of tech savvy as a person can be. He’s basically a luddite. In fact, I was surprised he was even IMing with me, he’s so seldom online. But I was more surprised by what he asked me. “What do you think of the new iPhone?”
It’s one thing to know what an iPhone is, but the fact… → Read More
Editor’s note: Guest author Steve Cheney is an entrepreneur and formerly an engineer & programmer specializing in web and mobile technologies. His last guest post was on Why Mobile Innovation Is Blowing Away PCs
The success of iPhone 4 has been astonishing to witness, despite the antenna issues, proving once again that Apple has a unparalleled ability to differentiate around design and… → Read More
The biggest problem with testing Facetime is the dearth of real, hard-core nerds out there with iPhone 4s. I’ve been able to talk to Greg and my buddy Tom, but that’s about it.
Now, however, you can call 1-888-FACETIME (188832238463) and talk to an Apple rep live over Facetime. They’re available from 8am to 8pm CDT. I tried it. It actually works. → Read More
As you’ve undoubtedly heard, one of the big new features of the iPhone 4 is FaceTime, the video chatting functionality. If you’re on a call with another iPhone 4 user (and both of you are connected to WiFi), you’ll see a new FaceTime button in the bottom row of the call options. But as some people have noticed, this new button replaces the “Hold” button found on all other iPhones. So how do you… → Read More
The future has officially arrived, ladies and gentlemen: El Steve just made a video call to Jony Ive as part of his famous “One more thing” sequence of the Apple WWDC. → Read More
The ever increasing popularity and usage of social networking sites, blogs, and instant messaging services in the workplace–while beneficial in many cases–is the cause of many security concerns for IT and security specialists. Human mistakes, such as disclosing private information through these portals and accepting malicious content via file transfers, coupled with newly enacted regulatory… → Read More
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