FaceTime by Apple has been one of the most widely used video chat services all around the world. Particularly in this pandemic, video calling has become a crucial necessity for business communications and personal chitchats. Apple has declared a few key updates to FaceTime during its WWDC event, offering great new ways to a virtual hangout!
Check out the new features here –
1. Generate Invite Link
Apple Introduces just another way to FaceTime your friends. Instead of the regular method of directly calling another FaceTime user through the app, it now enables you to generate an invite link shareable through any medium. With this feature, you can schedule Facetime calls in your calendar.
2. FaceTime with Windows and Android
FaceTime was exclusively used by iPhone and iMac users to date. But with its new invite link feature, you can now invite friends using an Android or Windows OS! When you share the invite link, they will be able to join your call through the web browser of whatever device they are logged on.
3. Enhanced Audio
The first feature under this category is audio isolation. This feature aims in eradicating background noise and makes the speaker’s voice very clear. Apple demonstrated it by placing a noisy leaf blower right behind the speaker. When this option was activated, the entire noise was cut out and only speech was heard! It seems quite impressive!
An improvement to spatial audio falls next under this category. It aims at making use of a 3D audio processing strategy to capture more of the environment of the speaker. This makes the listener feel that they are actually in the room with you!
4. FaceTime in Portrait Mode
Making use of the existing depth-sensing cameras of iPhone, iPad, and iMac, FaceTime impressively blurs out your background now and paints a clear-cut picture of you!
5. SharePlay
SharePlay allows you to watch movies or listen to music virtually with your friends. Anyone on the call can start, pause or rewind media files and it plays in total sync with all the parties. This gives you a simulation that you are actually watching a movie together! However, the source of media is limited to iTunes, Apple Music, HBO, TikTok, Disney Plus, Paramount Plus among others initially.
6. Grid View For Group Calls
With the new update, FaceTime places everyone on the call in a grid on the screen. This enables us to look at all the participants simultaneously. It also highlights the grid of the active speaker.