Bournemouth — May 20th 2014
You also need to ensure that your Address Book or Contacts contains an iPhone number or e-mail address that the recipient has registered with FaceTime. For your call to succeed the recipient must have FaceTime turned on although the FaceTime app doesn’t need to be running. Making a call is then just a case of launching FaceTime and selecting the recipient. Although sound and video quality are generally good, the option of a voice-only call gives even better sound quality. John demonstrated the call setup process before moving on to do a compare and contrast with Skype.
Arguably Skype’s biggest advantage is that it is available on PCs. At present Apple does not provide a Windows version of FaceTime and, although third party software claiming to do the job does exist, John did not know how well it worked.
FaceTime however scores over Skype on ease of use, and speed and quality of connection. This was demonstrated by John making a FaceTime call to his cousin in Philadelphia which enabled us to chat to him, spy on his neighbours walking their dogs and and admire his magnificent tub of slug free hostas!
John closed his talk by reminding us that the videoconferencing idea is not new, showing earlier concepts for achieving it, including one in the Punch Almanac of 1879, only just a few years after the invention of the telephone.
After a coffee break, there was the usual Q&A session in which problems with Mac Mail featured heavily - don’t they always!? Alan also asked for advice on identifying devices which were shown as having accessed his wireless router and told us about one of the benefits of Amazon Prime membership - the ability to stream films for free which can be shown via Apple TV.
Another enjoyable meeting with 13 members present, supported as always by the staff of Solutions. = T.&M.H.
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Alan Cox said…
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