The iPhone 4 transforms video chat.
As advertised in Apple's tear-jerking TV adverts, FaceTime is the iPhone 4's way of letting you see the person you're talking to on the phone, thanks to the new front-facing camera above the screen.
The feature only works when you have a Wi-Fi connection, and only when you call someone who also has an iPhone 4 that's connected to a Wi-Fi network, On the plus side, you don't use up any of your standard network talk time minutes once you switch to FaceTime, so you can chat for as long as you want without worrying about how much time you've got left. Let's now look at how this great feature works in practice.
HOW TO / Use FaceTime
To make a FaceTime call, you have to begin by making a normal phone call. Make sure you're somewhere you have mobile reception, even if it's only one bar, and that you're connected to a Wi-Fi network. Then tap the Phone icon on your Home screen and call your friend's iPhone. Notice the greyed-out FaceTime button below the Keypad one on the dialling screen. When the call is picked up on another iPhone 4, this turns white, at which point you can tap it to switch your call over into FaceTime.
If the other person hits the FaceTime button first, you'll be asked if you'd like to Accept or Decline. Touch the green Accept button to switch to video. You'll both see a message telling you that the phone's connecting, Give it a few seconds to get things linked up. Once the connection is established, your own face will shrink down into the top-right corner of your screen and your contact's face will fill the rest. At their end, your friend will see the opposite view, with your face as the main one and their own as the thumbnail.
A perennial problem of video chat is that when you look at the screen, you're not looking directly at the camera, and thus the other person. The iPhone 4's camera is just above the screen, so hold the phone a little above your eye level, keep your face at the top of the picture, and look just above the caller's eyes. This gives the best impression of eye contact.
HOW TO / Switch camera view
Besides chatting face to face, you can use the iPhone 4's main camera to show your contact what's going on in front of you. Just touch the camera flip symbol at the bottom-right of the screen to switch the view. For example, if you were at a festival, you could call a friend to share the buzz. Here, our contact is in the MacFormat office, which is almost as exciting as being in a muddy field - there are just more Macs and iPhones around.
As advertised in Apple's tear-jerking TV adverts, FaceTime is the iPhone 4's way of letting you see the person you're talking to on the phone, thanks to the new front-facing camera above the screen.
The feature only works when you have a Wi-Fi connection, and only when you call someone who also has an iPhone 4 that's connected to a Wi-Fi network, On the plus side, you don't use up any of your standard network talk time minutes once you switch to FaceTime, so you can chat for as long as you want without worrying about how much time you've got left. Let's now look at how this great feature works in practice.
HOW TO / Use FaceTime
HOW TO / Switch camera view
Besides chatting face to face, you can use the iPhone 4's main camera to show your contact what's going on in front of you. Just touch the camera flip symbol at the bottom-right of the screen to switch the view. For example, if you were at a festival, you could call a friend to share the buzz. Here, our contact is in the MacFormat office, which is almost as exciting as being in a muddy field - there are just more Macs and iPhones around.
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