iPhone 8 and later now support 1080p FaceTime HD calls over Wi-Fi

By Joe Wituschek
published

How to make a FaceTime call on iPhone, iPad, or Mac
How to make a FaceTime call on iPhone, iPad, or Mac (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • The iPhone 8 and later now supports FaceTime 1080p video calls over Wi-Fi.
  • iPhone 12 models get the higher resolution on 5G as well.

Reported by MacMagazine (via 9to5Mac), iPhone 8 models and later now support 1080p FaceTime HD video calls over Wi-Fi. iPhone 12 models not only support the higher resolution over Wi-Fi but 5G as well. The upgrade apparently came as part of the release of iOS 14.2 despite Apple not mentioning the upgrade in its release notes.

The difference was verified when the outlet looked at iPhone specification history on Apple's website and noticed that the feature was missing for iPhone models like the iPhone XR until November 9.

After some digging, MacMagazine noticed Apple quietly updated the specs pages for devices like iPhone XR shortly after iOS 14.2 debuted in November ... We discovered this because the iPhone XR spec page, for example, did not list video calls via FaceTime HD (1080p) until November 4th, but started to list from November 9th.

How to make group FaceTime calls on iPhone, iPad, and Mac

How to make group FaceTime calls on iPhone, iPad, and Mac (Image credit: Apple)

The report from MacMagazine says that the jump in video quality has been "quite noticeable" for the FaceTime calls they have tested across the iPhone models that support 1080p FaceTime calls.

Joe Wituschek
Joe Wituschek
Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.