How Does FaceTime Work?

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&#x2F;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 <i>outside</i> 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.<p>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.

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.<p>We were so young and naive then.

&gt; 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<p>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&#x27;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.<p>Facetime&#x27;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.<p>Discord with Nitro is pretty decent too, but really niche, obscure, non-mainstream solutions work best. TeamTalk[1] is one great example.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bearware.dk&#x2F;?page_id=327" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bearware.dk&#x2F;?page_id=327</a>

Here is a good write up on how the WebRTC implementation works for their new browser based calls. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webrtchacks.com&#x2F;facetime-finally-faces-webrtc-implementation-deep-dive&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webrtchacks.com&#x2F;facetime-finally-faces-webrtc-implem...</a>

&gt; 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<p>I don&#x27;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.<p>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].<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de.statista.com&#x2F;statistik&#x2F;daten&#x2F;studie&#x2F;274339&#x2F;umfrage&#x2F;anzahl-der-telefonanschluesse-im-festnetz-in-deutschland&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;de.statista.com&#x2F;statistik&#x2F;daten&#x2F;studie&#x2F;274339&#x2F;umfrag...</a>

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 <i>too</i> good. Better than most online voice chat stuff.

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)?<p>We&#x27;re looking for such a service for use in developing countries where iPhones are rare and connectivity is often mediocre at best.<p>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.

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&#x27;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&#x2F;s or faster fibre connections.<p>Strangely I&#x27;ve never noticed this audio problem during video calls.<p>So I tend to do voice only calls using WhatsApp and video calls with FaceTime.

FaceTime audio is the standard to beat. It’s just absolutely incredible.

&gt; They in fact do, a service called IDS or Apple Identity Service.<p>Reminds me of<p>&gt; The four F&#x27;s: fighting fleeing feeding and mating

We used to use Skype with my wife&#x27;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&#x27;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.<p>It is a shame that FaceTime isn&#x27;t easier to use as an alternative to Slack-calls and screen sharing. At least last time I tried, or I&#x27;d use it for work as well.

If you&#x27;re on Verizon LTE usually if you talk to someone else on Verizon I think it uses VoLTE [1] which sounds as good to me as FaceTime audio -- excellent. Like completely uncompressed CD-quality audio.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Voice_over_LTE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Voice_over_LTE</a><p>Edit: mdasen says more about VoLTE below: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28249217" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=28249217</a>

FaceTime is amazing. I keep in touch with my entire family using FaceTime video, often across thousands of kilometers.<p>It&#x27;s also such an equalizer, allowing even the non-computer literate to use it and focus on the actual conversations.<p>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&#x27;t think there exists an alternative she would be able to use.

I&#x27;m a little irritated by all the normative assessments of the A&#x2F;V quality of various communication software. I&#x27;m sure we can test latency, audio fidelity, and video fidelity in a useful way without resorting to super useful comments like &quot;&lt;service&gt; audio is the standard to beat&quot; and &quot;&lt;service&gt; works fine as well&quot;.<p>I&#x27;d legit pay money for a Consumer Reports around Google Meet, Jitsi, Zoom, and FaceTime. Load up a LAN with a packet loss&#x2F;jitter simulator and gimme some charts.

Telegram also provides this service quality, its available on all platforms and its free.