Apple has released the latest in their "Every Day" series of commercials, this time moving on to FaceTime. Following the theme of "Music Every Day" and "Photos Every Day", this latest spot shows different people in a variety of different situations connecting with their friends and family using FaceTime. Not Skype. The all important tagline; “Everyday, more people connect face to face on the iPhone than any other phone.”
Another bold statement from Apple, and not one that is necessarily untrue either. Speaking from personal experience, I can't recall many times in the last 12 months where I've seen anyone publicly video calling on anything other than an iPhone. There are obviously people who do – I'm one of them from time to time – but the overwhelming majority always seems to be using FaceTime. Is this because FaceTime is simple, and built into the phone just the same as text messaging is? Not forgetting of course that FaceTime is also available on the iPad and the Mac, too. On those other phones, video calling almost always requires the use of a third-party app, like Skype.
Video calling from mobile is still in the minority, however. It eats up your mobile data allowance and not your minutes, and if you're on a slow connection it's a pretty jarring experience. But, even though we've had Skype for a long time, and Skype users use it for specific reasons, FaceTime has definitely helped to take video calling into the mainstream.
What do you think? Do you like the ad? Do you use FaceTime much?
Reader comments
Apple kicks Skype right in the video call with new FaceTime Every Day ad
We use FaceTime daily. Mac to Mac, Mac to iPad, iPhone to iPod, you name the combination. My family and I moved 1,000 miles from home, so we use it for the kids to talk to my parents. My dad even uses it on his iPad mini - and he is pretty technology averse. Got his first cell phone a year ago and never uses it.
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It really is the best way we communicate as a family. I live in the US my family live in the UK all have iPhones and/or iPads so it just makes sense and Just works.
I would love an album of just apple commercial music, great background music for working.
Does anyone know if the music is specific to Apple commercials or is it out there somewhere?
"On those other phones, video calling almost always requires the use of a third-party app, like Skype."
I suppose that with the "other phones" you mean android... As Skype is integrated right into the people hub in Windows Phone. No need to start any third-party app there, and its possible to reach people on whatever device they are using... Just saying...
I'm generalising. That's what "almost always" means.
Ditto with BB10, where you can video chat, voice chat, and IM through BBM. iPhones require separate apps to do those things.
Unfortunately, FaceTime doesn't work so well when the majority of smartphone users do not have iOS devices.
Sure, but I think the point is that when Apple bakes a feature in iOS, a much higher percentage of its users will adopt the feature and utilize it regularly than, say, when Android or Microsoft bakes a feature into their respective OSes. (Hopefully that's not a particularly jarring conclusion to reach: the tech industry at large acknowledges it, and the other OS designers expend a great deal of effort getting that pattern to play out on their platforms.)
We videochat among family and friends, but through Skype, or, when groups are needed, Google Hangouts. FaceTime never enters the picture (chuckle) because it is not supported on every device in our social network. Had Apple published FaceTime as an open specification for others to implement, as Jobs famously promised, it could have taken over the world (at least my friends and family's world). As it is, it's a non-starter.
I really dig the commercials but the cavalier stats are killing me. I'd really love to see the proof of FaceTime being the most popular. It isn't that I think it is far fetched just that marketing statements without proof irritate me.
As to seeing FaceTime [in public], I NEVER see it. I literally haven't seen one person since it launched doing a FaceTime call, even at tech conferences. I, myself, do Hangouts every time I'm away from my family but I don't really see those either. Video calling will get there but it isn't there quite yet, IMHO.
You did notice that the majority of the people in the ad were in a private setting. I never use FaceTime in public because I don't want people watching me talk out loud to my phone, just like I don't want to hear anyone else's conversation even though some people think we all do.
"There are obviously people who do – I'm one of them from time to time – but the overwhelming majority always seems to be using FaceTime."
^ I was responding to that.
I love that ad, the little boy kissing the phone is the best part of the entire ad. It adds emotion to the feature of videocalling. My wife's family lives in Portugal and even though her sisters and mom have android devices they Facetime the family on the weekends when we are there. They use facetime because the family all have iPhones and it's as simple as initiating it. So they don't have to tell their family to install an app, sign up and remember passwords. So for her family it makes the process as easy as making a call.
Notice Apple never mentions FaceTime in the usage claim. They just say "iPhone." So they probably are including Skype users and others in that stat.
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I use FaceTime over other services because I know that when I "dial" someone that's a known iPhone user, that it *will* ring on their end. I never have to worry about whether or not they're logged into a service on their device. It's as simple as a phone call...
I have said it once and I'll say it again. Not everyone is using an iPhone or iPad. FaceTime is ok if u live totally in the apple ecosystem. And everyone else does too. I guess my friends are more eclectic and have other devices. Lol. What Skype has going for it is that it is multi-platform. All devices including pc's. can't beat that.
Hangout is build into most of Android phones.
I've seen once a women using facetime, I've seen a lot of people using hangout , also for group video chat.
The point is with only 30% market share in France , facetime is only useful with some of your friends but you usually want something that works with everybody
Skype is still far better for me because of the number of users it has. I even practiced portuguese conversation via skype at http://preply.com/en/portuguese-by-skype and it made me fluent in the language. There are even more services that are dependent on skype.