The second iPad mini will include a Retina upgrade and the iPad 5 will not have TouchID as was previously rumored, according to KGI Securities analyst Mingchi Kuo. These and a bevy of other predictions were released today in advance of the Oct. 22 iPad event to be held in San Francisco. The event will […]
Quietly, gradually, but clearly Apple is building platform lock-in into its iOS products, with some features that are deeper than just a rich third-party software ecosystem. FaceTime Audio is the latest of these, VoIP calling built on the back of its FaceTime video chat service, which is tightly integrated to the phone app to make placing free international calls almost a pleasant surprise for those looking to connect with far-flung loved ones.
FaceTime Audio joins iMessage as another reason to sign on with the Apple camp and get an iPhone or iPad device, and then never to depart again. It’s a little odd to see it arrive so much later than FaceTime’s video calling feature, but the reversal of feature rollout makes a lot of sense ; audio-only calls are uncomfortably close to standard phone calls, which is still one of the sole remaining areas that carriers control.
Apple delivering FaceTime Audio later, as an update to its original FaceTime service probably allowed it more time to mollify carrier partners, and the climate has changed around mobile software and services, too. There’s a new emphasis on data, and OEMs helping carriers drive sales of their own data products, so in that context Apple’s VoIP ambitions are less of a land grab and more of a helpful addition that furthers everyone’s goals.
For many users, FaceTime Audio is going to be nothing short of a revelation. Already, it’s my most-used new feature in iOS 7 with the exception maybe of Control Center. It helps that I’m currently in a different country than most of my friends and family, but it’s not like mine is an isolated case. And unlike in the U.S., carriers in other countries like Canada charge long distance for calling outside of your town or city, let alone for those calls across international borders.
Critics will say that services like Google’s Gmail calling and Skype have offered free international or long-distance calling for years, but Apple’s service is integrated directly into a user’s Phone, Contacts, Messages and FaceTime apps, which they’re already comfortable using, and doesn’t require having a separate account or third-party app open. That makes an immense difference in terms of barriers to usage for people who may not be all that technologically savvy. My less expert family members are already extremely comfortable with FaceTime Audio and how it works, not even a week into the feature’s launch, even if they’d never managed to make a habit of using Skype in the past.
Like BBM once was for BlackBerry, iMessage provides a considerable amount of incentive for users to stay, especially if they have a lot of friends and family also using iOS devices. FaceTime Audio serves the same purpose, and finally destabilizes some of the more draconian practices of carriers charging for so-called “long distance” calls that in actual fact look no different to their infrastructure or back-end, but are sold as “premium” services. It’s a small change, but an amazing one, and represents Apple seeding its users with features that take root and endear them to the platform for a long time to come.
With Apple’s new iOS 7 operating system, millions of smartphone owners will be able to block annoying callers for the first time.
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Ideally, your smart device of the future anticipates your needs and adjusts itself to suit them without requiring input on your behalf. Two newly published patent applications (spotted by AppleInsider) from Apple describe systems that could help do just that for future iPhones and iPads, via selective screen brightness control and auto camera switching during FaceTime video calls.
The first patent application describes a way for a user to selectively adjust brightness and contrast of different user interface elements independently of one another. Essentially, this could work in practice by doing things like selective lightboxing as you might see on a photo-focused website, foregrounding elements that contain active content and providing enhanced visibility as well as offering some battery savings.
This is something that some apps already offer, giving users control over what elements are darkened or made brighter within their specific software. Apple’s invention would have the advantage of making this a system-level feature, and one that works automatically in some cases, lightening the load on developer resources and making it so that users can reasonably predict how any given app will use it. This could have big impacts not only in general usability, but for specific accessibility advantage as well.
The other patent application new today describes a way in which Apple devices might be able to switch automatically between front and rear-facing cameras on the fly, based on cues from the user and what’s being captured by each camera lens. This would require devices to capture both streams at one time, but Apple says in the patent that advances in mobile processor tech have recently begun to make that possible without too much excess demand on system resources.
In practice, such a system would be able to work with live calls via services like FaceTime, so that when a participant says something like “Look what Bruno’s doing” and the rear-facing camera detects a dog-like shape in frame, it switches automatically to broadcasting that feed to the receiving party. This could also work for locally-recorded video, the patent application says, doing things like switching between front and back cameras depending on if it detects the person doing the filming is talking or not.
Both of these are the type of next-gen tech projects that likely won’t make it into hardware for the immediately incoming generation, but they’re logical enough additions to existing features that we could well see them in a couple of years’ time.
Let’s face it, when you webcam or FaceTime with a friend or family member, you look at the screen where their faces are at, and they look at their screen. However due to the placement of the webcam, it is “impossible” to actually look them directly in the eye as you would in real life. Granted this isn’t exactly a big deal, but in case you actually want to have that eye-to-eye contact and you aren’t able to meet up in real life, a Kickstarter project for a device called the eTeleporter should help solve that problem! It is essentially a plastic housing for the iPad that uses mirrors cleverly angled that will allow you to look eye-to-eye at the person you are talking to.
eTeleporter is a project by Prompt Video’s Hernan Giraldo who is actually the Vice President of National Sales at Alcatel-Lucent. According to Giraldo, this project was made possible thanks to a hiring of someone with a PhD in optical sciences to help construct the device. It was not as easy to put together as you might think, not just sticking a bunch of mirrors into a case, as it requires a lot of planning and testing to make sure that it works as intended. The project is currently seeking funding of $100,000 and if you’d like to learn more or help get it funded, hit up its Kickstarter page for the details.
Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It | eTeleporter iPad Accessory Hopes To Bring Eye-To-Eye Contact On FaceTime original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Apple’s sweeping change of iconography in iOS 7 has prompted no shortage of discussion over the upcoming iPhone and iPad interface change, and now the new FaceTime icon has been revealed too. The new icon, shown off courtesy of the US Patent and Trademark Office sticks closely to the design theme we’ve already seen Apple
There’s certainly been a lot of brouhaha surrounding the new design language Apple introduced for iOS 7 at WWDC. Some (ourselves included) feel it’s modern and fresh while others loathe the brighter palette and simpler, flatter icons. A lot can change between now and the launch of iOS 7 this fall, but if Apple’s recent trademark filing is any indication, FaceTime‘s new logo / icon — which consists of a stylized white video camera inside a rounded-off green square — fits squarely (ahem) within the aesthetic we saw on stage in San Francisco. Of course, companies often trademark logos, so we can’t really say this comes as much of a surprise, either. If you’re curious where Jony Ive might have found his inspiration for the pastel colors and thin lines showcased in iOS 7’s iconography, check out Otl Aicher’s design work for the 1972 Olympics in the “more coverage” link after the break.
Filed under: Software, Mobile, Apple
Source: Patently Apple
AT&T has faced a lot of criticism over its restriction for using Apple’s FaceTime over cellular, and after months of the carrier saying that it would finally allow FaceTime over a data connection, users are now being able to video chat with friends and family over cellular using FaceTime. According to AppleInsider, several users in
Today users of Apple’s OS X 10.8 or higher will be seeing an update to their systems in the form of an OTA software notification. The version of OS X appearing on MacBook and iMac devices goes by the version number 10.8.4 and brings on a variety of boosts and bug fixes, not least of
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