FaceTime Customer Review

As a 10+ year Apple user, I personally love FaceTime. That being said, it truly is not a "video conferencing tool". FaceTime is much more of a family and friend, let's stay connected and at least be virtually face-to-face kind of tool. I use it regularly to stay in touch with my family, and it's so easy that even my grandpa is able to use to call and stay in touch with me. The video and audio quality on FaceTime is also great, I very rarely have any issues with it in that regard. I was also pleasantly surprised to know that you can have up to 32 people on the same Group FaceTime call.

Moral of the story, if you're looking to conference with your coworkers and collaborate over a shared screen then FaceTime is not your platform. If you're looking to stay in touch with friends and family, then I can't possibly recommend a platform better or easier to use than FaceTime.

You can add up to 32 people in a Group FaceTime call, which is honestly very impressive for how basic and simple in form FaceTime is. It truly wasn't founded or enabled as an app for large group calls, but they've adapted to offer it at least. I truly can't think of a time when I need more than a hand full of people on the same FaceTime call, let alone 32. 

The only "fun and interactive" features that FaceTime offers are the edited overlay or the addition of emojis to your video stream. The overlay simply makes your video black and white, cartoon sketched, or any of those other Apple Photo Booth options. You can add emojis to your video stream like stickers. This can all be done by selecting the effects button, but you will need a relatively new updated Apple product to do so. 

FaceTime doesn't explicitly need privacy features as someone can't just hack into your meeting. It's an individual or small group video call where the participants must physically be called (like ring ring) into the meeting. You can mute yourself, but cannot control the actions of another participant. There's no "meeting host" so there's no need to worry about administrative controls.

FaceTime does not or is not able to integrate with any other systems. You can't schedule a call via FaceTime, so email, scheduling, or other office essential integrations aren't available. FaceTime does not integrate with Outlook, Slack, or GSuite as it's an Apple only product.

FaceTime is only compatible with Apple products. So it's only available for use on Mac computers, iPhones, and iPads. 

FaceTime's customer support would be connected to Apple's support since it is an Apple only app. Thankfully, contacting customer service for Apple, if you are having an issue with FaceTime, is pretty easy and straightforward. You can even text Apple support from your Apple device to communicate with them about the issue. 

With Apple Stores becoming more accessible across the globe, I think that Apple's customer service, technical support, and troubleshooting documentation is improving all around. I remember I had difficulty just as many Apple users did about 5-10 years ago with getting the help that was actually needed, but I'm continuing to find that is no longer the case. 

FaceTime is truly meant for individual or small group video calls, to catch up with friends and family so there are not screen sharing features available. 

Being that FaceTime is on Apple devices, it does offer security such as two factor authentication, biometric security recognition and so on. FaceTime is also encrypted from end to end, device to device. Being that FaceTime is limited in its use to Apple products and you must actually call someone to FaceTime with that, the risks or vulnerabilities to hacking is significant less likely than many other competitors with meeting IDs and passwords. 

Even when traveling internationally and I'm outside of my own network range, I've found FaceTime video and audio quality to hold up very well. Like any platform, when WiFi or service is not optimal the video and audio may not sync 100% or the video make be a little grainy. Overall, when you are on WiFi or have decent service, the video and audio sync well and performs really well. I've experienced few times with dropped video calls, poor quality, or cutting in and out. FaceTime does have maximum resolution, high definition 720p.