Apple’s iOS 15 is inbound, and it’s bringing with it a slew of cool updates to various apps, FaceTime being one of them. Among other tweaks and boosts shown off at Apple’s WWDC, the video calling app is getting Windows 10 and Android functionality thanks to a web app.
FaceTime for everyone
There are a handful of cool upgrades to talk about here. Firstly, the video call app is getting a new “portrait” mode. No, it doesn’t just turn the camera from landscape to portrait. Portrait mode focuses on your face and blurs the background around you. Additionally, you’ll also be able to hit a button to toggle whether the microphone grabs all of the audio in the room or hones in on just your voice.
This sounds pretty useful in a world where we’re still doing a lot of remote work and conferencing. Additionally, the app is getting spatial audio support to make conversations more immersive.
Apple has also announced a new ‘Shareplay’ feature. In a nutshell, Shareplay lets you bring music from Apple Music or shows and movies from various streaming apps right into your FaceTime calls, so you kick back with your mates and watch The Office for the ninth time even if you can’t be in the same room.
Users will also be able to generate ‘FaceTime links’ which, as you might expect, are links to FaceTime calls. You can send these links off to other Apple users, sure, but the real clinch here is that these links can be used by users on non-Apple devices, like Android phones and Windows 10 PCs, to join in on FaceTime calls. These users will join via a web-based version of FaceTime. Apple ensures that these web calls are still end-to-end encrypted, privacy isn’t a concern.
There’s no definitive release date on these features, but they’re likely to roll out sometime later this year.