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I'll be down-voted, although I solved the problem with: .. FaceTime. If you don't have a mac you can get a ipod touch. That's what I use to talk with my family

by DAddYE 12y ago

I'll be down-voted, although I solved the problem with: .. FaceTime. If you don't have a mac you can get a ipod touch. That's what I use to talk with my family USA->Italy. Is the only thing I found that is reliable and has a quite good quality.

droopyEyelids 12y ago
In the end, FaceTime is only adequate software. There isn't anything particularly annoying about it, and it does what the average user expects. What makes FaceTime incredible is that no one else on the planet can make anything even close to adequate in that space. It can be mind boggling to cycle through Skype, Lync, Google Hangouts, and every other piece of chat software on your computer, all failing in bizarre ways, only to think, "Oh yeah. Let's try FaceTime" and have it work.
peatmoss 12y ago
If I ever move overseas again, I will be purchasing an iPod Touch for each and every older family member before departing. FaceTime works remarkably well.
delackner 12y ago
I'll leave aside the meta commentary on your (unneccessary) downvote comment. Facetime is what makes it possible for me to stay in touch with my family on the other side of the planet, and that's even if I'm sitting out in a park far from Wifi. It just works, and even if it hiccups once in a while, the reliability is high enough that you just shrug it off with the confidence that it will recover. This is on LTE with good reception.
jgmjgm 12y ago
On a recent trip to the US from the UK my wife and I each used a BlackBerry Playbook with the built-in video chat. It was perfect -- no discernible lag and I was able to talk with the kids with great video and sound quality. So, perhaps Skype and GV are suffering from over-extended networks? It must be hard to justify investing in better network infrastructure for a free product (or when your revenues are minimal). On that note, I don't get the impression that BlackBerry's network has much of a problem with network load these days...
pbreit 12y ago
This is what's so annoying about Apple: why no Android client? How can you hope to have a communications platform that is so severely constrained? That's why so few here barely even know about Facetime. You can't invest in it because it's so limited.
- jodrellblank 12y ago
  'hope to'? They don't hope to, it exists. 15-20 million FaceTime calls every day: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/28/apple-40-billion-imessages/ http://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/28/apple-40-billion-imessag...
  - pbreit 12y ago
    So 8% of users try it once per day? I'm wondering how that compares to phone, messages, email, whatsapp, Skype, etc? Very poorly, I'd say.

by DAddYE 12y ago

droopyEyelids 12y ago

In the end, FaceTime is only adequate software. There isn't anything particularly annoying about it, and it does what the average user expects. What makes FaceTime incredible is that no one else on the planet can make anything even close to adequate in that space. It can be mind boggling to cycle through Skype, Lync, Google Hangouts, and every other piece of chat software on your computer, all failing in bizarre ways, only to think, "Oh yeah. Let's try FaceTime" and have it work.

peatmoss 12y ago

If I ever move overseas again, I will be purchasing an iPod Touch for each and every older family member before departing. FaceTime works remarkably well.

delackner 12y ago

I'll leave aside the meta commentary on your (unneccessary) downvote comment. Facetime is what makes it possible for me to stay in touch with my family on the other side of the planet, and that's even if I'm sitting out in a park far from Wifi. It just works, and even if it hiccups once in a while, the reliability is high enough that you just shrug it off with the confidence that it will recover. This is on LTE with good reception.

jgmjgm 12y ago

On a recent trip to the US from the UK my wife and I each used a BlackBerry Playbook with the built-in video chat. It was perfect -- no discernible lag and I was able to talk with the kids with great video and sound quality. So, perhaps Skype and GV are suffering from over-extended networks? It must be hard to justify investing in better network infrastructure for a free product (or when your revenues are minimal). On that note, I don't get the impression that BlackBerry's network has much of a problem with network load these days...

pbreit 12y ago

This is what's so annoying about Apple: why no Android client? How can you hope to have a communications platform that is so severely constrained? That's why so few here barely even know about Facetime. You can't invest in it because it's so limited.

jodrellblank 12y ago
'hope to'? They don't hope to, it exists. 15-20 million FaceTime calls every day: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/28/apple-40-billion-imessages/ http://www.macrumors.com/2014/02/28/apple-40-billion-imessag...
- pbreit 12y ago
  So 8% of users try it once per day? I'm wondering how that compares to phone, messages, email, whatsapp, Skype, etc? Very poorly, I'd say.