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FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

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Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#311
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facetime is for users who think videocalls are called "Facetime"

So, tens of millions of people. Seems like a reasonable strategy for attracting non-iOS users to the iOS ecosystem by enabling their massive user base to exert social pressure.

Heroin is like this, too.

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can't have facetime for android because that will remove the barrier for families to buy Android phones for their kids I might be missing something... Is there something in this that is illegal?

> illegal besides being immoral and a literal F-U to your consumers, it can bring anti trust cases when you are as big as Apple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in But other than that, well, just go celebrate your $2 gain on your APPL stocks despite the fact you were prohibited to call 50% of your friends just so someone couldn't save a few bucks when buying a phone for their teenage kid. Go you!

I agree with the arguments (usually made by Apple fans, and I don't mean that as a pejorative) that Apple is probably in their legal rights and that it makes dollars and cents business sense for them to limit iMessage to iOS as much as possible.

But it's still a shitty thing to do. I have a tremendous amount of respect for companies that do things that are contrary to business objectives because they're the right thing to do. In this case, Apple chose to do the shitty thing.

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intention behind not letting it work for their competitors is immoral and potentially illegal. They want to do it to prevent their consumers to buy their competitors products for their family, even if their competitors product are better; just because they already have a device in the Apple ecosystem.

They are not "preventing" anyone from doing anything, they are simply, until now, refraining from improving their competitors devices by releasing their software for it. Of course they prefer people to buy iPhones for their kids, there is nothing wrong with that, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with not actively working to make the experience of mixed Android-iPhone families slightly better. There are literally…

The email we are discussing specifically says they want to prevent customers from buying their competitors products for their friends and family.

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years? https://mobilesyrup.com/2020/04/08/google-meet-rebrand/ Google rebrands or changes entire apps at a whim. I’m shocked they haven’t ruined Google Apps (Workspace) with their changes.

Yes, it was originally named "Hangouts Meet", and was renamed about a year ago to remove "Hangouts" from the name. It's still the same app, though.

On the subject of hangouts, I miss Hangouts Dialer which was killed earlier this year. Used it to call international phone numbers.

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#315
post #74

Let's hope that FaceTime will work on Firefox too.

It won’t: https://i.redd.it/w4z12et4mx371.jpg . Presumably this is “courage”? There’s an open webcompat issue: https://webcompat.com/issues/76499

I wonder if FaceTime is just looking at UA, or doing proper supported features check? Microsoft Teams supposedly are not working in Firefox because they use some old WebRTC standard. Apple should be building on new standards, right?

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#316

Wow. That is unexpected. I have to say that FaceTime in a browser sandbox is one of the few Apple products I would consider using. I wonder what made them take this path? I also wonder if someone could build a Matrix bridge if it is available via web, that would be fairly cool. Some questions: - Is it phone-number based IDs? Or can I pick a username or get a random ID? - Is spam going to be a problem? Previous Apple…

Considering that it's only available to join existing calls and not to initiate calls, it's likely an email address paired with a random ID.

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> illegal besides being immoral and a literal F-U to your consumers, it can bring anti trust cases when you are as big as Apple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in But other than that, well, just go celebrate your $2 gain on your APPL stocks despite the fact you were prohibited to call 50% of your friends just so someone couldn't save a few bucks when buying a phone for their teenage kid. Go you!

I agree with the arguments (usually made by Apple fans, and I don't mean that as a pejorative) that Apple is probably in their legal rights and that it makes dollars and cents business sense for them to limit iMessage to iOS as much as possible. But it's still a shitty thing to do. I have a tremendous amount of respect for companies that do things that are contrary to business objectives because they're the right thi…

I don't have an opinion on this either way but why is that "the right thing to do" in your mind? It seems to me like making that available on non-Apple products would give very little benefit to them or their users while introducing lots of uncertainties that may actually make the experience worse for most users. The reason most Apple features work the way they do is because of the complete vertical integration of hardware and software. Introducing unknown hardware seems like a bad idea when consistency is your whole schtick.

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#318
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Duo is pretty easy for the old folks on i-devices, in my experience. It's pretty much Google's FaceTime, and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I think it's actually a bit nicer than FaceTime.

>isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

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.

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#319
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously why are Google video calls SO confusing and why do they change every year?

Duo is solid, extremely simple, and not going anywhere. But, yeah, it's been a mess.

>and not going anywhere

What is this certainty based on? Google's history shows the exact opposite likelihood.

Re: FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also boosts value for ios users more than the rest. It means an ios user can facetime anyone rather than only ios users while an android users still has to rely on an alternative solution.

I worry that my contacts could feel insulted if they find out I'm contacting them via this sort of "don't call me" communications channel.

Well it sounds like they will send you the link between another communication channel. So you can always respond there and send your own video call link (using another service).
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