Last year, video conferencing took over the world, leading to a steep rise in video conferencing platforms, led by the likes of Zoom and Google Meet. However, one of the biggest tech companies in the world-Apple, failed to catch on to this growing trend, providing no competitor in the market. Well, it’s never too late, as the company announced major updates to its video chat platform Facetime at WWDC that don’t technically make it a video conferencing platform, but brings it pretty close.
First of all, starting now, users will be able to enjoy better audio experience in the Facetime app. This includes the introduction of spatial audio, which will make it seem like the person you are talking to is sitting in the room with you, using directional voice. That’s not all the audio surprise, as the company also said that it will introduce voice isolation (allowing you to clearly transmit just your voice over the call, turning the dial down on background noise) and wide spectrum audio (which will capture everything in your surrounding, including your voice).
Moreover, to make the transisition to an almost video conferencing platform, Facetime HAD to add some video conferencing features. This include grid view, where you will be able to see multiple participants together, portrait mode, and more. You will be able to share a Facetime link as well, which will allow other users to join a Facetime call, just like a Zoom like. Moreover, non Apple users will also be able to join these links using the browser.
Then, there’s also Shareplay. What’s SharePlay you ask? Well, it’s something like a Discord channel, but inside Facetime. Using Shareplay, users will be able to watch movies and listen to songs, together in a call. Moreover, it will also allow one person to share their screen, and I don’t need to explain how that works to anyone.
All of this solidifies Apple’s entry into the Zoom market, where instead of creating a new app from scratch (which would have led to acquiring customers from scratch), Apple is using its Facetime to increase engagement on its own platform. Pretty smart move Tim Cook!
With all of this, Facetime is bridging the gap to a video conferencing platform, with the only thing holding it back being the maximum number of participants in a call.
