What is FaceTime?

I was at the pub the other day with my friends watching the game. When it was over and we all left to go our separate ways I reminded one of them that he needed to call me later as I had asked him to find something out for me. His response was, "I'll FaceTime you".

Now I had to ask exactly what he meant as I had no idea what FaceTime actually was. After having it explained and having subsequently used it several times since, I have to admit that I am hooked!

So what is FaceTime? Now you may be reading this thinking that everybody knows what FaceTime is, but considering I have had my iPhone 4s for several months now and know a fair bit about them, I don't think that this is the case.

Yes to make the point early on, FaceTime is in fact something that is solely for iPhone users, and only those with the latest models of iPhone the 4s and 4. Well that is not strictly true as you can now use FaceTime on an iPod touch, a Mac and an iPad, but I meant as far as cell phones go.

I have digressed slightly there as this is supposed to be an explanation as to what FaceTime is.

FaceTime is a way of communicating with somebody you want to make a phone call to, face to face. Instead of finding their name in your phone book and simply calling them, if they also have an iPhone 4 or 4s then you can select the FaceTime option as displayed in the picture below. You will then be able to see them, as long as they are looking at their screen. They can also see you, it is quite simply live video chat!

As you can see this is just the standard contact details page on your iPhone, and like me, you may not have even noticed the FaceTime option on there before.

One thing to remember though is that if you are calling someone with FaceTime who does not have a phone that supports it then it will be ringing for you, but not for them, so they will have no idea that you are trying to get hold of them.


How much does FaceTime cost?

So this is a very cool feature for your iPhone and if you have a good looking partner or just like to see who you are talking to, the chances are you are going to become addicted to it, but how much does FaceTime cost?

To my knowledge FaceTime is free as long as you are connected to your Wi-fi. Depending on what network you are with seems to depend on whether FaceTime costs when on 3G instead. I have looked at a few forums online to check this out and the information is a bit ambiguous. The best thing to do is make a quick call to your network provider to find out.


FaceTime email address

Another useful thing about FaceTime is that you don't even need to have somebody's number as they can register with an email address. So as long as you have that they can still receive FaceTime calls from you to their iPhone.

For those that have no idea what FaceTime is or were just looking for a bit more information on it, I hope that this post came in useful.

I am going to be adding a quick page to my website www.how-to-text-message.com on how to use FaceTime as well so more information can be found there.