[HN Gopher] How Does FaceTime Work?
___________________________________________________________________
How Does FaceTime Work?
Author : r4um
Score : 164 points
Date : 2021-08-19 05:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (matduggan.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (matduggan.com)
| muststopmyths wrote:
| I remember back in the day when FaceTime was announced Apple made
| a big deal about it using standard protocols throughout the stack
| ( SIP and maybe WebRTC?) and dangled the hope that there could be
| 3rd party apps that connected with FaceTime.
|
| We were so young and naive then.
| npteljes wrote:
| Facebook and Google also did that with XMPP.
| pfranz wrote:
| The presentation said something like they planned for it to be
| "open" or something. I believe that was the first the dev team
| had heard of it.
|
| People have guess that patents prevented it from actually being
| an open standard. Coincidentally, some of those patents expired
| in the last year or two and the last should expire this year.
| But I kind of guess the window has passed for it becoming open.
| ksec wrote:
| >People have guess that patents prevented it from actually
| being an open standard.
|
| Not guessed. Apple was actually sued and had to change how
| FaceTime works.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > But I kind of guess the window has passed for it becoming
| open.
|
| It's moving there. They're adding a web interface this year.
| pfranz wrote:
| I found the clip from the 2010 keynote [1]. Steve Jobs
| said, "We're going to take it all the way. We're going to
| the standards bodies tomorrow and we're going to make
| FaceTime an open industry standard." I didn't watch the
| whole video, so I might have missed some context, but this
| lines up with my memory.
|
| I don't see a web client being a move in that direction.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/eujypqKT8o0?t=5809
| abrowne wrote:
| IIRC, when Jobs said that sentence, it was the first time
| the team was told of any plan to make it a standard.
| There hadn't been any legal or technical review that it
| would be possible. (Not in 11 years now they couldn't
| have made it happen if they wanted to.)
| ftio wrote:
| That web interface is a customer acquisition and retention
| play.
|
| It enables FaceTime users to stay in the ecosystem when
| their friends don't use the platform they do (vs going to
| Zoom, which is available for everyone). And it enables non-
| users to get a taste of FaceTime without before they buy an
| iPhone.
|
| It's a brilliant move, but I wouldn't call it open. Maybe
| "open enough" :D
| CSSer wrote:
| They have a lot of work to do if that is the case. The
| beta experience at present is downright poor,
| particularly on the non-Apple end of things.
| piskov wrote:
| There were some (lost?) patent disputes afterwards which could
| have an impact on openess.
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| Strange preamble: I found the quality of analog landlines to be
| terrible. Since we got switched over to VoIP, the voice quality
| is crystal-clear if the person on the other end also has a VoIP
| connection. It almost sounds _too_ good. Better than most online
| voice chat stuff.
| kkielhofner wrote:
| Interesting human psychology note: I was involved in some early
| deployments of HD-ish codecs. HD codecs are considered to be
| anything that provides greater than the (less than) 4kHz
| frequency response of the traditional PSTN. At the time "HD
| audio" was generally 8kHz frequency response (16 kHz sampling
| rate because of Nyquist-Shannon[0]).
|
| This was around 2009 and many users, having not experienced
| that kind of frequency response/fidelity were kind of
| "unnerved" by it because (as you say) it can sound "too good".
| Users were freaked out by the extended frequency response and
| added fidelity. A common complaint was that previously
| undetectable breath sounds, etc were audible.
|
| "These days" with FaceTime, WebRTC, etc sampling rates go all
| the way to 48 kHz, being able to represent the entire range of
| human hearing (and far beyond the range of human speech[1][2]).
| Not only have people become more used to the extended audio
| range, various other parts of the stack (quality
| microphones/hardware, speech detection, noise cancellation,
| etc) has caught up and some of those early pesky issues like
| breath sounds, etc have been largely addressed.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampli...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_frequency
|
| [2]
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.0058...
| myself248 wrote:
| That's funny, because I remember missing breath sounds when
| switching to digital cellular. That plus the added latency
| still makes it difficult to converse sometimes.
|
| It's weird to me how, after a century of obsessive attention
| to quality and latency all throughout the whole analog era,
| through the digital isochronous transition, and up into the
| first-gen analog cellular system, digital cellular was so
| much cheaper that we just rolled over and accepted all the
| terrible compromises. It's not like customers who preferred
| AMPS had the choice to stay on it.
|
| Only recently have I experienced VoIP calls that start to
| claw back some of that lost quality. Frequency range, bit
| depth, maybe even latency if I'm lucky. I don't think we'll
| ever again have it as good as ISDN, but I can dream.
| kkielhofner wrote:
| It very well could have been that breath sounds just
| sounded differently, or the whole experience was unnerving
| to our user base (healthcare) at the time. In any case we
| set the sampling rate back to 8kHz and moved on.
|
| I too miss the days of a B channel on a T1 PRI!
| illegalsmile wrote:
| I miss landlines, talking on the phone was actually
| enjoyable. I rarely have a cellphone conversation
| (verizon/iphone x) anymore that feels anywhere near as
| natural or enjoyable as the landline did. I keep thinking
| it's the phone, a setting or the network and it's not. The
| latency and talking over one another just doesn't work for
| me. We used to have multiple people on a POTS call and it
| worked fine and now it's always "sorry, go ahead" even when
| there's one other person on the phone.
|
| The BEST cell phone call I've ever had was back in 2004 on
| a sony ericsson in Bangkok of all places calling my parents
| on their landline in Chicago. Crystal clear, almost zero
| latency, it felt like I was in their living room talking to
| them. I've never had that in the states and I would like
| to.
| miki123211 wrote:
| > For those of you old enough to remember landlines, it reminds
| me of those [...] When we all switched to cell service audio
| quality took a huge hit
|
| As a blind person with a lot of friends in different corners of
| the world, audio quality is very important to me. Surprisingly
| enough, I've seen side projects that took a weekend to develop
| that had much better quality than what mainstream services offer.
| Part of it is probably because of bandwidth costs, but I guess
| effects (like cancelling echos from participants who use speakers
| instead of headphones, or reducing noise from crappy mics) also
| play a role.
|
| Facetime's quality is good, but nowhere near what your devices
| are actually capable of. The only mainstream solution that is
| actually good is Zoom, when you enable original sound, stereo
| audio, high fidelity mode and disable a few annoying filters. To
| do this, the app needs much more fine-grained control of your
| microphone than you can get from a web browser, so the native
| client is essential.
|
| Discord with Nitro is pretty decent too, but really niche,
| obscure, non-mainstream solutions work best. TeamTalk[1] is one
| great example.
|
| [1] https://bearware.dk/?page_id=327
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| While I am having trouble finding a source for this right now,
| I am quite certain that Discord intends to add a setting
| enabling all audio processing for those with good audio gear.
| Or at least that's what they said they would do.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| I actually don't think bandwidth costs are responsible, nor DSP
| effects.
|
| I suspect the lousy audio quality in modern voice conferencing
| software is to compensate for people with lousy internet
| connections or underpowered devices: someone using an older
| phone in the car on 3G cell service with cell tower handoffs,
| or a crusty laptop using lousy coffee shop WiFi, etc.
|
| It's a tough problem to solve. Everyone on a call can be
| affected by one person with a lousy connection if the software
| isn't very sophisticated.
|
| People are generally willing to tolerate lower bitrate audio if
| it means less dropouts, and lowering the bitrate for everyone
| is easy to do (if a bit lazy), and solves many problems.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| Sorry, no. I am an IT janitor and my brother is a audio
| solutions engineer for major companies so we have discussed
| where it breaks down. Someone who is a demonstrable idiot
| decides to put a wimpy cheap processor in these devices and
| have them do a bunch of digital processing on the audio to
| "improve it" and so you get very very bad quality. Idiots
| literally rule our society I could go on but its basically
| like that Kurt Vonnegut book where the rich elites are
| sitting around listening to Beethoven records at the wrong
| RPM and nobody can convince them its wrong.
|
| These audio engineering guys can do almost anything. Their
| requirements these days are bonkers.
| Const-me wrote:
| I've opened facebook.com with browser dev.tools open. The 3
| largest java script files are using 1 megabyte to download.
| Facebook is able to do that because even globally, vast
| majority of people have internet way faster than 64 kbit/sec.
| 1 megabyte takes more than 2 minutes to download at 64
| kbit/sec.
|
| It's similar story with CPUs. Modern CPUs are insanely fast
| these days, smart phones included. What once required
| purposedly-designed ASICs (e.g. Sony Minidisk had one for
| ATRAC3) is now borderline free in terms of compute power. A
| cheap Android phone sold 10 years ago gonna have at least
| 500MHz CPU, and at least 256MB RAM.
|
| 96 Kbps AAC audio works on 10-15MHz CPUs, and 64 Kbps HE-AAC
| works on 50-60 MHz CPUs, both from 2005: https://www.helixcom
| munity.org/projects/datatype/2005/aacfix...
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I don't know if this is common, but I have a lot more missed
| audio bits in Facetime than I do in other apps when I talk to
| my family in a third world country. I suspect what you are
| saying is correct. Modern apps are built for the weakest link
| while Facetime is built for the strongest.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| > but I guess effects (like cancelling echos from participants
| who use speakers instead of headphones, or reducing noise from
| crappy mics) also play a role.
|
| I wonder if there is a market for a meeting app that has the
| best quality of them all, by not trying to poorly work around
| bad environments, but simply booting people out of meetings
| until they fix their setup.
|
| Yes, it would suck if you or someone you really need something
| from get booted, but after a few weeks everyone's setup would
| likely be fixed so this would no longer be a frequent issue,
| and in exchange, you wouldn't have 20+ people get driven mad by
| someone giving a hour-long presentation over Bluetooth audio.
|
| I feel like shitty audio quality is responsible for at least
| 80% of the 'zoom brain' effect.
| slownews45 wrote:
| I'm actually also very sensitive to audio quality.
|
| Oddly, I also landed on zoom has above the rest in terms of
| quality. Everyone on my team uses headsets, this avoids need
| for echo cancellation and the weird muting effectings that
| generates - so I HIGHLY recommend this - two people can talk at
| once comfortably so you pick up the little cues of
| interjections etc.
|
| Facetime audio only is good in quality in my experience, but
| not so great in latency (may be for reasons outside apple's
| control obviously).
| stephen_g wrote:
| I just wish FaceTime on macOS would let me use virtual webcams
| and not do weird things to audio inputs if you you keep also
| using them in other apps. I have a Blackmagic converter that
| works to bring a high quality external camera into other
| software, but FaceTime won't let me use it (it just doesn't show
| up in the list, and neither does the OBS virtual camera). That
| and the weird stuff it seems to do to the audio subsystem on Mac
| (this is all in 10.14 so maybe this isn't the case in later
| versions?). We were trying to use it as a back channel for
| podcasting/streaming but trying to send audio to FaceTime somehow
| messed with the input in a way I've never seen with any other
| application, and broke it in Logic and OBS. It was almost as if
| audio processing was happening _outside_ the app for some reason,
| so you get really weird results (messed up levels etc.) in other
| apps sharing the audio device inputs... Goes away when you start
| an audio app without FaceTime active.
|
| We found a free app Sonobus that works really well for low
| latency audio for what we were doing in the end. FaceTime is
| great for just calling the family on the iPad though.
| tumblewit wrote:
| FaceTime audio is the standard to beat. It's just absolutely
| incredible.
| imagine99 wrote:
| Can anyone recommend a similar service that provides true high-
| quality video chat functionality on par with FaceTime but not
| requiring Apple hardware (but still easily usable on mobile)?
|
| We're looking for such a service for use in developing countries
| where iPhones are rare and connectivity is often mediocre at
| best.
|
| Tests with the like of Telegram, Duo and others have been okay-
| ish for voice-only calls but pretty bad for video. Mostly because
| of lack of Apple hardware on the other end we are until now
| unable to conduct any comparative tests to see whether FaceTime
| would outperform these apps in terms of quality and stability.
| nojito wrote:
| You can join Facetime calls without apple devices in iOS 15
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Join, but not start if I recall the announcement correctly.
| MrGilbert wrote:
| Discord's video quality is rather high, at least on the
| desktop.
| jagger27 wrote:
| With Nitro, anyway.
| 2rsf wrote:
| WhatsApp does a decent job
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I disagree. I think it's one of the worst. I've used it
| around the world and it's often terrible.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| WhatsApp is usable but nowhere near the video and audio
| quality of FaceTime. It's also only on mobile where the
| screen is rather small and audio quality is never great - not
| very important since they seem to use very high audio
| compression anyway.
| jonathanbull wrote:
| Can't speak for the quality, but video calling has been
| available on desktop (Windows/MacOS) for a little while now
| -
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/04/whatsapp-rolls-out-
| voice-a...
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I could never make video or audio calls work on my Mac.
| They were technically available, just didn't work.
| pfranz wrote:
| This wasn't focusing on 1:1 calls, but a couple years ago we
| tested all the video chat services we could access. We had
| offices spread across India, Malaysia, and the US with varying
| qualities of connection and many people working from home. Zoom
| had the best results when working with a poor connection. I'm
| not sure I'd say the peak quality was as good as FaceTime.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Jitsi works fine as well.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| I find FaceTime video calls really superb, but for whatever
| reason the audio only calls have short (sub-second length)
| moments where it cuts out and it's very disconcerting. This
| happens when calling both my parents and my brother, both of
| which are only KMs away and like me have 25Mb/s or faster fibre
| connections.
|
| Strangely I've never noticed this audio problem during video
| calls.
|
| So I tend to do voice only calls using WhatsApp and video calls
| with FaceTime.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If you have 25Mb/s connection while anyone on the other end has
| only 1.5Mb/s connection, then you have a 1.5Mb/s connection.
| Just because you pay for fiber doesn't mean you always get that
| speed. Most benefits of highspeed badwidth at home allows for
| multiple connections to reach their "full" speed without
| forcing other connections to lower speeds.
| throwthere wrote:
| Even if you have a 1.5Mb/s connection you should hear crystal
| clear audio.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Wow, take things litteral much? The numbers were just used
| to demonstrate, and not meant for actual comparisons. If
| the other party has a lower bandwidth than you, you are
| limited to that lower bandwidth. Fat pipe connected to
| little pipe means fat pipe can only move little pipe's
| worth of volume. If the other party has kids that are
| playing games, streaming youtube, listening to music,
| downloading torrents, etc, their bandwidth is fractioned
| too. If no QOS is enabled for ensuring mom&dad's phone
| calls are good before little Timmy's Fornite and little
| Suzzie's TikTok videos, then mom&dad can get the short end
| of the stick. Let's also not forget those IoT devices and
| Ring doorbells, and blah blah all cutting into that
| available bandwidth. People forget and take for granted how
| many things in their homes feed on that bandwidth
|
| Yes, with 1.5Mbps one _should_ hear crystal clear audio,
| but you have no idea how much bandwidth is actually being
| used.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| GP said that both they and the other participant had
| faster than 25Mbps connections...
| FemmeAndroid wrote:
| I wonder how much of this has to do with the speed of a
| connection and how much has to do with Jitter? Especially
| on wifi, Jitter can become a huge barrier to overcome, even
| if the speed of your connection is extremely high.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I wish other statistics about connections were more
| public, since there is much more to a connection than
| just bandwidth.
| dylan604 wrote:
| With that kind of information publicly available, they'd
| have a hard time getting people to join the network!
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Most people don't even have an option at home in the US,
| but it would make it harder for them to lobby politicians
| by not being able to claim everything is fine.
|
| For home, you chose fiber if you're lucky to have fiber.
| Most people only have access to coaxial cable internet.
| If you're unlucky, you do not even have that.
|
| For mobile, you have Verizon, ATT, and T-Mobile so it is
| not so bad there.
| sgt wrote:
| FaceTime is amazing. I keep in touch with my entire family using
| FaceTime video, often across thousands of kilometers.
|
| It's also such an equalizer, allowing even the non-computer
| literate to use it and focus on the actual conversations.
|
| In fact, my 103 year old grandmother is able to do video calls
| with me, which is great because I rarely see her in person these
| days. I don't think there exists an alternative she would be able
| to use.
| throwthere wrote:
| Semi-related question since I'm looking to get my grandma
| setup. Waffling between an iPhone and iPad, maybe an iPad mini
| but don't know if the air would be better (lighter I think).
| What device does your grandma use to FaceTime? Do you know does
| she do anything else with it?
| dekoruotas wrote:
| Just three days ago I've set up my 93 year old grandfather on
| a Lenovo Smart Display 7. I think it has multiple benefits
| over an iSomething: - Always plugged in - no need to remember
| to charge - Shows our family picture albums that I can
| remotely update via my Google Photos - It is loud. Left the
| volume at 3/4 - Sits on a table and you're never holding it
| wrong(tm) - No settings to mess up, two previous tablets were
| too complicated
| Seanambers wrote:
| I had to google it to see what it looked like, looks great
| if all you care about is photo + videocalls.
|
| In the end i guess it all depends on the persons ability to
| manipulate and see things.
|
| I've pushed my parents hard into the Apple ecosystem and it
| has worked out great.
|
| My mom first got the iPhone 4, before that she had a nokia
| flip phone, she could use it from day 1. Nowadays I buy the
| newest iPhone, and after 1-2 years or so I sell it to one
| of my parents for a 'nice' price. The iPad I made them buy
| (and they upgraded it once) is very popular.
|
| But the most used Apple product is the AppleTV. It has
| enabled them so watch the news when they want, and Youtube
| has given them access to content (travel) they'd never had
| before.
|
| Sharing photo albums, facetime video calls, imessage and
| ease of use is just on a level I don't think exists with
| android - of course, sometimes theres the small hiccup.
|
| But they are not 93 years old so the mileage might vary :)
| sgt wrote:
| That's cute but also kind of horrific if you want to do
| anything else. You are essentially ensuring he's stuck in a
| sandbox.
|
| My grandmother as mentioned uses an iPad which is the only
| user friendly tablet or "computer" I would ever give her.
|
| She uses it for general browsing and e-mail as well, as
| well as taking photos and browsing albums in iCloud. No
| messaging though.
| mod50ack wrote:
| For the past few years I've had my grandma using a Linux
| desktop (for her, it's always the year of the Linux
| desktop!) She has no idea how to use the system, but I just
| lock it down for the most part, exposing mostly Skype and a
| solitaire game, and giving myself full access to SSH and
| x11vnc (through SSH, with my key required, of course).
|
| To her, it's almost like a television, as family members
| are able to call her and even initiate calls. (Although we
| often have to call her on the normal phone to get her to
| realize that we're calling her on her computer, or to plug
| it in --- this is the one thing she does do with the
| hardware.)
| daemoon wrote:
| You're one those who cannot let other people use and enjoy
| Apple products just because you do not like them.
| acdha wrote:
| Those are good selling points but all but the last applies
| equally to a tablet (e.g. there's no law requiring you to
| use a tablet on battery).
|
| The key point is the single function: a general purpose
| computing device has more UI & management than some people
| want to deal with. This is something the industry really
| hasn't done a great job with, especially since it overlaps
| with the problem of treating things as disposable because
| the revenue model for single purpose devices is mostly
| broken and so people are often forced to churn them because
| the device they're used to has been discontinued or no
| longer works with their WiFi.
| sgt wrote:
| She uses an iPad Mini.
|
| I would also recommend a handle/knob type thing on the back
| so it is easier to hold it without accidentally touching the
| screen.
| natdempk wrote:
| I think a bigger device/screen is easier for older people to
| use. I think they can struggle a lot with typing on a smaller
| phone screen, as well as the font and overall display size.
| sgt wrote:
| Also - knob handle on the back of an iPad is handy. To
| older hands, it can be really difficult to hold a tablet
| without touching the screen.
|
| Older ladies might also have long nails which makes
| touching icons hard too.
| malshe wrote:
| I second this. I bought iPads for my parents and in-laws
| and I gave them the choice between iPad Mini and iPad
| thinking they will prefer mini because it's lighter. Both
| of them chose iPad precisely because it has a larger
| screen. I don't think it was just because of the ease of
| typing.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Just FYI in the accessibility settings there's options for
| increasing the text size and input options for people with
| mobility/dexterity issues. A larger screen of an iPad makes
| for physically larger targets but you can _also_ zoom the
| UI.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I think iPad Air is worth it for older people since it does
| not cost much more and the grandparents in my family
| appreciate the size of the screen, especially since they use
| it with enlarged text size.
| randomdata wrote:
| Unfortunately, calls with more than two people seem to fall
| apart quickly if the network connection isn't perfect, even
| where Meets, Zoom, etc. work flawlessly.
| jwineinger wrote:
| Agreed. For me, the hallmark of a good system is being able
| to forget that I'm using it. That has never happened to me
| with Facetime.
| acdha wrote:
| This substantially the opposite of my experience so I'd bet
| there is some factor for proximity to CDNs or traffic shaping
| done by your ISP. FaceTime is rock-solid; Zoom is also good
| but has noticeably lower video quality (but good noise
| handling). Meet's native apps are good but their browser UI
| is coded to break Firefox so I don't use it much.
| scatterhead wrote:
| So it sounds like Facetime's Firefox support is better in
| your experience?
| acdha wrote:
| I'd flip it the other way: Google decided to remove the
| benefits of portability, similar to how Zoom removed the
| benefits of being able to use their service without
| installing a client first.
|
| FaceTime is limited to Apple devices until iOS 15 allows
| anyone with a browser to join a call, so you'd think
| they'd be emphasizing the benefits of portability more.
| randomdata wrote:
| The benefit of FaceTime being an open standard.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| It's not an open standard
| randomdata wrote:
| Nor does it currently work in Firefox. Hence the
| continuation of the joke.
|
| It was originally announced as an open standard, though.
| Anyone who remembers Steve Jobs would have caught on. It
| is easy for us old-timers to forget how long ago that was
| now, so I extend my apologies to the youngsters.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Facetime doesn't work in any browser, does it? On macOS
| and iOS it uses a dedicated app, the protocol is
| proprietary so no 3rd part clients exist?
| bleachedsleet wrote:
| FaceTime is coming to the web
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/7/22522889/apple-
| facetime-an...
| caddybox wrote:
| I think it is unfair to label a platform with a two hundred
| dollar entry barrier as an equalizer. VoIP and allied
| technologies are the real enablers and ad-supported platforms
| like WhatsApp et al. have been true equalizers by allowing
| anyone to communicate with anyone at marginal costs. The ease
| of picking up the phone and calling somebody with no
| consideration of cost has enabled so many people to connect and
| communicate on a more frequent basis.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| > I think it is unfair to label a platform with a two hundred
| dollar entry barrier as an equalizer.
|
| Even in poor areas, lots of people are walking around with
| iPhones. $200-500 gadgets are not out of the range of poor
| people. That works out to less than a dollar a day.
|
| One time amortized expenses aren't that much of a barrier,
| from what I've seen. The real barriers the poor face are
| things like high rents, high medical cost, high cost of
| education, etc.
| wpietri wrote:
| About a quarter of the world's population lives on less
| than $3.20 per day. [1] $200-500 is a lot of money to
| billions of people.
|
| [1] https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-
| release/2018/10/17/n...
| krrrh wrote:
| The cost of entry should be expressed as the difference
| between lower cost or used iPhones and iPads vs similar
| android devices. Even though there is a cost premium for iOS
| devices the proven longer longevity of arguably makes them
| cheaper for most people, especially light users who are happy
| sticking with a device for 5-8 years. The family members who
| do tech support for them can mostly rest happy with automatic
| security updates turned on.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| It's so great and easy to use it even works for video calls
| with a person in China, while all other foreign communication
| apps are blocked there. Isn't that interesting.
| randomopining wrote:
| CCP doing analysis on foreigners' faces and call contents so
| that they can cull dissention after they take over in 10
| years. But Apple wants to do business there!
| LivelyTortoise wrote:
| Is there anything that sets FaceTime apart from cheaper
| competitors like WhatsApp / Signal video calling in this aspect
| of ease of use?
|
| (I say cheaper because you don't need to buy an iDevice to use
| those)
| masterof0 wrote:
| Don't you also need to buy a phone/computer/tablet to use
| whatsapp or signal? How does whatsapp is cheaper than
| facetime? But anyway, yeah, I noticed Facetime's both video
| and audio calls have better quality, in my personal
| experience. Also, most if not all my friends and family use
| iDevices, so I dont need to convince them to install
| signal/whatsapp/telegram etc... But YMMV.
| thisisussbs wrote:
| Yes but a practical new Android phone with reasonable spec
| (I don't mean cheap Chinese oems with 1gb ram) can be had
| for $100 and can run WhatsApp/signal fine. The cheapest
| iphone is $399 iirc, the high entry costs that disqualifies
| a lot of people even in the US and certainly abroad where
| apple tax difference compare to base currency of usd399
| exceeds regional sales tax differences (mexico for example)
| copperx wrote:
| True. That $399 iPhone SE is sold for $540 in Mexico at
| the Apple store. And middle-class Mexicans have between
| 1/3 to 1/10 of the buying power of an American
| counterpart.
| andrecarini wrote:
| In Brazil a new iPhone 6 costs about two months of the
| national average raw income, while a cheap Android
| alternative would be about 1/3rd to 1/4th of an average
| monthly salary.
| sgt wrote:
| Does average monthly salary mean much if the majority is
| really poor? Assuming you are middle class, here. Also:
| you probably mean iPhone 12. The 6 is quite old.
|
| I remember my 6 very well as I fell on my motorcycle and
| I pulled this banana shaped phone out of my pocket.
| andrecarini wrote:
| > Also: you probably mean iPhone 12. The 6 is quite old
|
| I definitely meant the 6.
|
| Minimum monthly wage (formal jobs, before taxes): R$1100
|
| New iPhone 6: R$1700 ~ R$2400
|
| New iPhone 12: R$7700 ~ R$10000
|
| > Does average monthly salary mean much if the majority
| is really poor?
|
| For those poor and outside the formal job market, buying
| a new iPhone (even the older ones) are out of reach or a
| very significant investment.
| thisisussbs wrote:
| News flash the $399 model is based off 6 or 7
| npteljes wrote:
| Hungary:
|
| Cheapest iPhone: 120000 HUF
|
| Cheapest Android: 9700 HUF
|
| Cheapest reasonable Android: 21000 HUF
|
| Minimum wage after taxes: 111000 HUF
| malshe wrote:
| Brazil is such an outlier. I wonder why Bolsenaro didn't
| do anything about the insane import duties in Brazil. And
| don't get me started on the difficulty in using financial
| services there.
| tsjq wrote:
| >How does whatsapp is cheaper than facetime?
|
| Whatsapp ,Skype, Telegram, Google Duo, etc apps work fine
| on Android phones which are lots less expensive than Apple
| Devices that are needed for Facetime
| sgt wrote:
| Trust me, you don't want to put family on Android. My
| mother started out with Android (to save money), and she
| never even fully understood how the bottom buttons
| worked. I became the customer care. Now she's on iPhone
| and there's no support burden. Phew.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| You don't usually get to choose what devices people buy.
| All my family is on Android simply because they're not
| interested enough in tech to spend triple the price on an
| Apple device, and there's nothing I can say to make them
| spend that much.
| xrisk wrote:
| You can take the call on a computer?
| reayn wrote:
| macs come with facetime preinstalled (the newer ones at
| least) and you can send facetime links to people and they
| can join using the web client if they dont have a mac.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| Only on a mac.
| sgt wrote:
| Definitely easier to use than any of the alternatives. An
| intuitive video calling system should do just that: video
| (and/or audio), not chat.
|
| Firstly; she has not heard of WhatsApp, it would have to be
| taught to her that it is a chat app that has additional
| functionality to allow phone and video calls.
|
| Blank stare.
|
| She does not chat and has no interest in doing that.
|
| The UI of WhatsApp is confusing and unintuitive if you assume
| you know nearly nothing except that you want to make a video
| call.
| comandillos wrote:
| Telegram also provides this service quality, its available on all
| platforms and its free.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| There is also Nextcloud Talk [1] (based on Spreed [2]) for
| those who have their own Nextcloud server. I use both Telegram
| as well as NC Talk, quality is comparable. Telegram is a more
| capable messenger though, that part of NC Talk is
| underdeveloped.
|
| [1] https://nextcloud.com/talk/
|
| [2] https://www.spreed.eu/
| breakfastduck wrote:
| I mean its a complete misnomer to state that the quality is
| remotely comparable.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| I use both, and prefer facetime when I can (all people with
| iphones have it so barrier to entry is lower) - but Telegram is
| the next best thing for me.
| nizmow wrote:
| FaceTime is also free, and Telegram's audio and video quality
| is vastly inferior.
| Jcowell wrote:
| Not to mention has less friction
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Only when you live in an Apple bubble which in practice
| comes down to the USA and parts of Europe. Elsewhere Apple
| is a margin player with the vast majority of mobile devices
| running Android. Telegram is available everywhere, for all
| "significant" devices and categories (desktop, mobile, web)
| which makes it a more universal option. It is growing at a
| rapid pace (200 million users in March 2018, 400 million
| users in April 2020, 500 million in January 2021 so
| probably around 600 million by now) with ~15% daily active
| users. This growth rate will probably increase with the
| recent brouhaha around Apple scanning devices in the hunt
| for illegal imagery.
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| FaceTime is a free part of Apple's software offerings, but
| you can't start a FaceTime call if you aren't an Apple user.
| yohannparis wrote:
| I don't understand your point, you can't start a Telegram
| call if you aren't a Telegram user as well.
| suprfsat wrote:
| Anyone can become a FaceTime-calling Apple user for a
| mere $199. https://www.apple.com/ipod-touch/
| t00 wrote:
| Anyone can become a Telegram (or Signal) user. For $0,
| infinitely less than $199.
| masterof0 wrote:
| I wonder how could you make a Telegram video call with no
| device. Or android devices are free?
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Free, no. Less expensive and more widely available than
| iOS devices, yes. Telegram also works on Linux, Windows
| and MacOS. There is a web version as well which works
| anywhere there is a reasonably recent browser available.
| The web version does not yet support calls as far as I
| know, this will most likely be added in the near future
| given that it is a rather trivial addition with plenty of
| free-software implementations available.
| notwhereyouare wrote:
| a telegram account is free, a facetime account requires
| an apple device.
| masterof0 wrote:
| an iCloud account is free, a Telegram account requires a
| device. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| plater wrote:
| He means that you need Apple hardware to start a Facetime
| call.
| yohannparis wrote:
| That's my point too, you need hardware anyway for a
| Telegram call. Whatever device you use has an inherent
| cost.
| mosselman wrote:
| We used to use Skype with my wife's parents and it sucked: there
| were delays, freezes, low quality video, etc. It worked great
| with my mother, but she had far better internet than my wife's
| parents. The alternatives were even worse: Telegram, whatsapp,
| jitsi. Then we tried FaceTime: the difference was night and day.
| Everything was smooth, the sound was better, no stuttering, we
| could actually read things they held to the screen, etc.
|
| It is a shame that FaceTime isn't easier to use as an alternative
| to Slack-calls and screen sharing. At least last time I tried, or
| I'd use it for work as well.
| criddell wrote:
| At one time, you could configure Skype to make a point-to-point
| call and the quality was great provided both endpoints had high
| bandwidth, low latency connections. Microsoft changed it to
| make all calls go through their servers and the quality took a
| big hit.
| airstrike wrote:
| I literally can't even type phone numbers into Skype on my
| iPhone without a massive input delay that actually makes the
| digits appear all at once, with their tones coming out like a
| musical chord.
|
| In the 21st century, this is unacceptable. The app is so clunky
| I loathe using it but it's unfortunately still a good (the
| best?) solution for dialing landlines and mobile phones abroad
| for extended periods of time.
| raviisoccupied wrote:
| macOS Monterey will include screen sharing for FaceTime! It
| should be released in a month or so.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Will the feature also be coming to older MacOS versions? The
| only Mac I have on hand runs Mojave, and I have no intentions
| of upgrading anytime soon.
| lqet wrote:
| > For those of you old enough to remember landlines, it reminds
| me of those [...] When we all switched to cell service audio
| quality took a huge hit
|
| I don't understand - are landline phones not in use anymore? I
| only use a landline phone to communicate with the family, because
| I simply cannot stand the audio quality of cellphones for calls
| which last longer than a few minutes.
|
| Edit: In Germany, there are about 40 M active landlines. That is
| 1 landline phone for every 2 inhabitants, and this number seems
| to be have been fairly constant over the last 20 years [0].
|
| [0]
| https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/274339/umfrag...
| the-dude wrote:
| Landlines have been digitized too, a distinct difference to
| what an analog landline offered.
|
| It was more intimate, you could hear breathing for example.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| tuxoko wrote:
| Why does digitization affect breathing sound? Isn't that
| because of the position of mic of landline phones?
| jeffbee wrote:
| You mean packetized. Digital isochronous landline services
| existed for decades. The "T" system was deployed by AT&T in
| 1962. Digital telephony is in fact awesome. There's no reason
| why "digital" needs to mean "it sucks". The reason voice over
| mobile networks sounds terrible is because traditional
| landline service uses a 64kbps isochronous channel and
| lossless 8-bit/8kHz coding, while mobile uses a voice
| estimation model that transmits its parameters every 20ms at
| ~3-6kbps and suffers from frequent frame loss. VoIP can sound
| much better than mobile but may occasionally suffer delay and
| loss which never happened with traditional telephony.
| wanderingstan wrote:
| I had forgotten about hearing breathing; you're absolutely
| right it was more intimate.
| the-dude wrote:
| As I remember it, one could be silent and still be
| together.
| elzbardico wrote:
| I think that at least for long distance calls, landline calls
| have been digitized and packet switched since the 70's,
| didn't they?
| EGreg wrote:
| No. Otherwise why would things cost $3 a minute until VOIP?
| philjohn wrote:
| Because VOIP hadn't come along, so they had a monopoly
| and could charge pretty much what they wanted.
|
| They switched to digital because it reduced their costs,
| instead of multiple trunk lines you could get away with
| fewer fibre lines.
| EGreg wrote:
| Why didn't they compete with each other to bring costs
| down?
|
| You mean they had a cartel for decades, kept prices
| artificially high, didn't compete and the government did
| nothing?
|
| Yeah sounds like the cablecompanies...
| pfranz wrote:
| > Why didn't they compete with each other to bring costs
| down?
|
| I remember that happening in the 90s due to deregulation
| and breakup of at&t. 10-10-321 had a lot of commercials
| in the 90s[1]. I'm sure they're on YouTube. Most people I
| knew would go to a convenience store to buy a pre-paid
| card for long distance. 1-800-collect was a similar
| service that had a bunch of ads for calling collect.
|
| It kind of makes calling confusing (and required going to
| a store and buying something upfront), but I remember
| younger people (who probably weren't paying for the
| landline at home) never really considered using their
| home phone's long distance service. I think most landline
| services kept their high prices because the few that used
| it were too lazy or didn't know better. I wouldn't be
| surprised if it's still expensive (I haven't had a
| landline in over a decade).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-10-321#History
| jeffbee wrote:
| Digital yes, packet switched no. Traditional long-distance
| telephony was digital and circuit switched.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It was also more hackable. You could litterally open up one
| of those grey phone company stumps with a 7/16" socket, and
| then just start rewiring the connections. I had a friend that
| knew which cables ran to their house, and could use a couple
| of wires to jump them to another line. They were able to
| "borrow" someone's line and routed to the 2nd twisted pair
| for their house. They rewired the phone jack in their room to
| have a 2nd line. Everything was good until they forgot to
| unplug the phone while they were not home, and someone rang
| the other house and it rang in their room while the parental
| units were home.
| quesera wrote:
| A great deal of (most?) last-mile connections are still
| over copper, so this capability is still common.
| calessian wrote:
| I wonder how much that translates into actual use. A lot of
| internet providers (in Germany) technically include a landline
| using VoIP, but that doesn't reflect the number of calls
| necessarily.
|
| I've made some calls, but less than five in the last few years.
| mdasen wrote:
| Landlines are expensive in a lot of places. Looking it up, a
| landline would cost me $70/mo which is significantly more than
| my mobile plan.
|
| I think different countries have different norms around things
| like landlines - or even texting. In the US, people ignored
| texting for a very long time and preferred to call people even
| if it was just a short note.
|
| In terms of audio quality, VoLTE has improved that quite a bit
| when both sides will inter-operate with HD voice. Older stuff
| often used 8-12kbps and primitive codecs to encode your voice
| which simply a lot of compression. I know Speex has had some
| great results at low bitrates, but that's a far newer codec.
| However, I believe VoLTE's AMR-WB codec still chops everything
| about 7,000 Hz. T-Mobile US and Verizon have both implemented
| EVS which goes up to 14,000 Hz.
|
| https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-make-your-cell-phone-cal...
|
| Of course I'd find a Sascha Segan article when looking to
| confirm some information. It has some great recordings to
| compare and you can see huge differences depending on carrier
| implementations. The Sprint-Sprint test shows very poor
| quality. The T-Mobile 2G test also shows how old networks just
| used poor codecs with limited bitrates. You can even hear
| distinct differences between the T-Mobile-T-Mobile call and the
| Verizon-Verizon call where the Verizon call just sounds
| significantly less rich.
|
| Back in the day, calls used a huge amount of network capacity.
| Even today, because calls need a more guaranteed bitrate,
| networks need to leave some extra room for them. 128kbps of
| streaming music isn't the same as 128kbps of real-time voice
| because the network can deliver 15 seconds of music and then it
| can deliver the 16th second of music any time in the next 15
| seconds. Real-time two-way communications don't have that
| luxury. Still, bumping up the bitrate on communications makes a
| big difference and networks today should be more than capable
| of handling it.
|
| I don't know what German operators have implemented, but cell
| phones have come a decent way in terms of audio quality, though
| carriers being lazy and interoperability problems can mean that
| consumers don't always get the benefits in the real world.
| olyjohn wrote:
| My landline here near Seattle is around $60/mo. I don't know
| why... back when I first set up a land line here, it was
| $25/mo. The quality of the line has deteriorated so bad,
| there's noise on it, they won't bother to fix it. A few years
| ago the line had a physical break somewhere between my house
| and the DSLAM. They switched me to another pair of copper. I
| have 3 pairs of copper coming into my house, but now one is
| totally dead, and I will never be able to use it again.
| Apparently our street is at full capacity and they have no
| plans to repair or add more lines.
|
| The other problem with land lines is the amount of robocalls
| you get on them. The phone companies offer no way to truly
| block them. Every blocking service they offer relies on
| Caller ID, and with the robocallers spoofing Caller ID and
| randomizing numbers, the blocking is totally ineffective. I
| literally get 5-8 calls a day. They used to offer a call
| blocking service, where a machine would answer, and tell you
| to hang up, or press 1 if you wanted to connect. This service
| no longer exists, and the other call (ineffective) blocking
| services (they offer at least 3 or 4) each cost about $6/mo
| each. My belief is that they are making tons of money
| allowing unauthenticated calls into their network, that they
| have no desire to actually block any calls.
|
| Also the relatively small number of landlines left leaves a
| rather small audience of people to complain. So most people
| don't even know this is a problem.
| BuckRogers wrote:
| >My belief is that they are making tons of money allowing
| unauthenticated calls into their network, that they have no
| desire to actually block any calls.
|
| I've been waiting for that to happen on cell and landline
| numbers. Authentication for the party calling. At this
| point, there's no other option than legislation. Just
| mandate how common voice services like landline and
| cellular operate their business.
|
| It needs to happen otherwise the only solution is to give
| them up and only do our own outbound calling, never to
| actually receive any calls at all.
|
| Other options like blocking all calls from non-contacts is
| risky because a call from a delivery driver or babysitter
| in an emergency will be missed. It's about the only option
| though for enduser today.
| webmobdev wrote:
| It is on the decline in India too:
|
| > In the past decade, landline subscriber base has been on a
| decline, with connections reducing from 36.76 million as of 31
| January, 2010 to 20.58 million as of 31 January, 2020. Of the
| total telecom 1.18 billion connections, only 20.26 million, or
| less than 2%, were landline as of February. -
| https://www.livemint.com/industry/telecom/trai-says-declinin...
|
| (And yes, landline phones do offer better voice quality. Even
| if I am calling from a cellphone, I prefer to call someone on
| their landline. )
| kkielhofner wrote:
| I used to joke that even with extended frequency response,
| etc cell phones and VoIP can certainly sound worse. I would
| compare the Sprint "pin drop" commercials[0] to the (at the
| time) Verizon Wireless "Can you hear my now?" campaign[1]
| with the joke being - progress from a pin drop to yelling
| "Can you hear me know? How's this? Is this better? Sorry
| about that." 20 years of progress!
|
| Of course now (for the most part) packet loss concealment and
| other advanced technologies have equalized a bit of this but
| there are still days where I miss B-channels on a T1 PRI.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4dIDl8sjJk
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo0xsZCRp4g
| wpm wrote:
| Not really no. Landline calls are often worse than cell phones
| in my experience as well, especially if the other person is on
| a cordless landline.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Everyone already has cellphones, so a landline is an extra
| monthly cost for something that you're already paying for.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Unless you're of a certain age. People that already had long
| established landlines continue to pay for them even after
| getting a cell phone. And people still call them on those
| numbers as thats the number people know and remember vs just
| storing a cell number in their contacts.
|
| Also, for people getting an internet signal from the phone
| company (DSL), the landline was usually bundled in a package.
| They tried to make them viable for as long as possible.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| All the houses with grandparents in my family have lost
| landlines since all the grandparents have phones.
|
| Even the older grandmas who did not go past grade school
| who do not know a non English non Latin language like to
| use their WhatsApp to consume media from their cousins and
| other friends/relatives. And of course, FaceTiming
| grandkids.
| majjam wrote:
| Its spam calls that ruined it for me
| myself248 wrote:
| > They in fact do, a service called IDS or Apple Identity
| Service.
|
| Reminds me of
|
| > The four F's: fighting fleeing feeding and mating
| smoldesu wrote:
| Looks like they acronym'd themselves into a corner, there.
| malshe wrote:
| I had to read the last line twice to get the joke!
| nerdbaggy wrote:
| Here is a good write up on how the WebRTC implementation works
| for their new browser based calls.
| https://webrtchacks.com/facetime-finally-faces-webrtc-implem...
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