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A very useful application on my iPhone is the FaceTime app which helps me stay in contact with my friends and family. I had heard about earlier generations of people going abroad to live and study, and they had to face a lot of difficulties in making contact with their families back at home and often they had to stand in lines to make calls at home which were also very expensive, and the voice quality was poor as well. Then came the era of the internet which helped in bringing the world even closer. With the formation of the E-mail service and video chatting through the Hotmail and Yahoo accounts on personal computers, communication got easier, but there were problems like lack of privacy in conversations and also, at times, the connection was bad so the voice or picture would get unclear. As technology progressed, the gadgets got smaller and more intricate and so did the methods of connecting with people through the internet. After the invention and use of Skype, people were rapidly drawn to it because it involved the use of a Smartphone to make a call. It felt more convenient, but Skype too suffered quite at the hands of bad connections. Finally, apply came up with FaceTime, which is a quality app for long distance calls on the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac. There are many benefits of using this app for making calls, and it is a pleasure to use it on the phone. (Whipps, 2011).
“FaceTime has made the lives of its users easier and more fun. Communication through the internet has always been problematic for people, but with FaceTime, many difficulties and barriers in communication are easily removed.” (Whipps, 2011).
FaceTime is a much more convenient application for use than all the other ones. The first and foremost problem that many people face while using other applications on their phones is not being enough “tech savvy” or not knowing how to operate the devices. Some people have difficulty in remembering their email address and passwords and others can’t remember numbers or how to contact them. This is a problem especially for the elderly or people who are just not interested in learning about these applications. Because of this, they are not able to contact their loved ones and feel distanced from them. This problem is relieved by the use of FaceTime. FaceTime does not require any phone numbers to be dialed. “There is no need to add any IDs. Hence, it is very easy to approach a person and call them which is just like making a call to someone on the phone.” (Ritchie, 2015).
The effect of such features on its users is the ease of use. It makes the lives of people easier, especially the elderly and anti-tech kind of people who are least interested in doing through a series of steps to make a call. The added ease of simple operation has also made this application very popular and more, and more people are using it. Also, it makes it easier for people who are busy and instead of dialing numbers or looking for them, they can simply check the contacts by name and reach them or check the last dialed number and call it at their ease. This makes FaceTime a very likable application for many iOS users who can operate on FaceTime from any device they would like in the same way they would perhaps make a call on the phone.
Additionally, the biggest and most serious concern that many people have while using these applications is the amount of security they offer and how far is their material, the videos and voice calls, secure and private for them. It has been a problem with many apps that they stored the calls and data shared and that led to the risk of security and leaked data through the phones. However, “FaceTime is an app that is encrypted end-to-end. As compared to other applications like Skype, Hangouts, etc., there is no concept of end-to-end encryption.” (Ritchie, 2015). This makes their use risky to users as no one can tell where a potential virus sits that could hack into one’s account and steal away the data via the Wi-Fi connection or another system. Even Google could secretly tap someone’s conversation, and unless the security feature is turned-on on the app, there is no safety of usage. (Ritchie, 2015).
Apple’s FaceTime offers good security which means that users can share what they like without the threat of hacking or getting their data stolen from their devices. This makes them feel at ease while using FaceTime on any gadget like the iPhone, Mac, iPad or iPod, etc. People encourage other people as well to use FaceTime because of this feature of security without the additional hassle of turning on a secure conversation or worrying about any lost data.
The other benefit that is associated with FaceTime is the advantage of being able to have a video with voice. There are many applications other than FaceTime that offer this service, but they completely lack good voice and video quality and most of the time the picture would have many distortions, and the voice would get distorted and break throughout the call. This makes the call very difficult, and people get irritated by the poor quality. However, FaceTime is guaranteed to have the best video and voice quality that any application can offer. There are no distortions, and the calls are free of disruptions. Moreover, “FaceTime has the option of either to view the video and voice or just the voice, as per the user’s choice.” (Whipps, 2011).
This is particularly useful for people who are far away from their homes and families and need to contact them without any difficulty or barrier in communication. I can write my own example here, that being an international student and studying abroad, I miss my home, my friends and family living far away. However, I can always cut down this distance short by contacting them through my phone on FaceTime. Wherever they are, they can easily contact me, I can see them on video calls and feel free to talk to them as long as I like without any interruption in the call because of bad sound quality or distorted video. This is very convenient for other people as well who can make free calls through the use of mobile data or the Wi-Fi connections they use. The high-quality video and sound make it one of my favorite applications on the iPhone, and I use it every time I need to make a long distance call. It is equally convenient for making calls to the person in the next room as well, as the calls are free, and it is easy to make contact through FaceTime.
Therefore, FaceTime is a very useful app on iOS that provides a lot of benefits for the users and makes their lives easier. It is easy to use, and a person can make a call just like dialing a number on the phone, it does not require intricate technical learning, moreover, it is very secure with ‘end-to-end encryption’ of data and videos to ensure safety of the user’s privacy, and it has features of good quality video and sound that make it possible to talk long distances without any interruption. Thus, FaceTime is a convenient and constructive application for communication.
FaceTime had earned a right to be discussed in the matters of its usefulness in a positive way when a rather unbelievable event unfolded involving a 2-year-old toddler who used FaceTime to become nothing less than a hero. Through the use of FaceTime, a mother names Laura, who had been bitten by a dog who nearly chewed her finders off, got saved with a heroic move from her two years old son. When the accident happened, Laura rushed home and though she was unable to call for help herself, she asked her daughters to do so who were too afraid to do it. Luckily for Laura, she has FaceTime installed in her iPhone and her 2 years old son used to play around with it. He took the phone and called one of his mother’s friends. When she picked the call, she could see the boy’s face on the screen who quickly turned the camera to his mother who was screaming and did not look in a good shape. The friend immediately called emergency and hence the mother was saved, courtesy the ease of usage of FaceTime that even a two years old toddler could manage to get used to (Villamarin, 2014). FaceTime surpasses Skype in effectiveness because the quality of making a video call with FaceTime is far better than that of Skype. Tests have confirmed that the picture and sound quality of FaceTime are far better than those of Skype. The test was run by taking into account another variable that is the strength of the camera and microphone being used. Though Skype is supported by a number of platforms as compared to faceTime, the latter beats the former in the image and sound quality by a margin. Additionally, most platforms on which Skype works that FaceTime does not are not widely used (Adibowo, 2014).
References
Adibowo, S. (2014). Does FaceTime have better video and audio quality than Skype?. Retrieved March 02, 2016, from https://www.quora.com/Does- FaceTime-have-better-video-and- audio- quality-than-Skype
RITCHIE, R. (2015). Apple’s FaceTime is an end to end encrypted. Google Hangoutsisnot..
Retrieved from http://www.imore.com/unlike-apples-facetime-googles-hangouts-isnt- end-end-encrypted
Villamarin, J. (2014). Bentley Toone: 2-year-old Toddler Uses FaceTime to Save His Injured Mom after Dog Attack in Arizona. Retrieved March 02, 2016, from http://www.ibtimes.com.au/bentley-toone-2-year-old-toddler-uses-facetime-save-his- injured-mom-after-dog-attack-arizona-1334380
Whipps, K. (2011). The Pros and Cons of FaceTime. Retrieved from http://iphone.appstorm.net/general/opinion-general/pros-and-cons-of-facetime/
