Apple iOS 15 has been officially announced, and with it, a swathe of significant updates to the FaceTime app. This includes Android support - kind of.
Apple didn’t waste any time at WWCD 2021, its developer conference, announcing iOS 15. Following a year of lockdown and video calls, Craig Federighi took to the digital stage to talk us through to the significant upgrades heading the way of FaceTime.
It has long been the case that FaceTime has been great for Apple users, and no one else. With iOS 15, Apple is adding a link function that allows users to send their contacts a FaceTime link. This can then be used by Android users to open a FaceTime call in their smartphone browser.
In order to make video calls easier to follow and understand, spatial audio is being added to FaceTime, giving each person on the call a sound directly related to their location on the screen.
Grid view is also being added, allowing all on the call to be seen at once and subtle highlights showing who is talking. Portrait mode is a feature that blurs the background of a user’s video for greater privacy.
Further, Apple is adding voice isolation to the FaceTime microphone, allowing the user to turn on machine-learning powered noise cancelling, cutting out the background noise for a clearer conversation. The opposite is also being added, with Wide Spectrum audio setting the microphone to pick up environmental and ambient sounds.
SharePlay is another large update adding multimedia social features to FaceTime. SharePlay allows users to listen to music together, share playlists and playback controls. Movies can also be watched from participating apps, like Apple TV and Disney+, and seamlessly moved between devices. Start the call and movie on your iPhone, switch to iPad and then send to Apple TV - it’ll keep up with it all and keep all viewers in sync.
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William Lobley is a Content Writer and reviewer for WhatsTheBest, specialising in technology, gaming and outdoors. He also writes for Empire Online.
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