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Apple Delays 32-Person Group FaceTime From iOS 12 Launch (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the this-is-the-new-Apple dept.

Developer Guilherme Rambo has revealed that the 32-person FaceTime group chat feature "has been removed from the initial release of iOS 12." Apple says the feature "will ship in a future software update later this fall." The Verge: Group FaceTime chats will allow 32 participants in a video call, with tiles of people's faces where you can manually select people to highlight them in the main interface. Apple's delay to group FaceTime chats comes after the company delayed its AirPlay 2 introduction in iOS.

8 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. Time by GrahamJ · · Score: 1

    Apple's delay to group FaceTime chats comes after the company delayed its AirPlay 2 introduction in iOS.

    Due to the unidirectional nature of time.

  2. CUseeme did it in the 1990's by Seven+Spirals · · Score: 2

    I remember seeing CUseeme "reflectors" do this a very long time ago. Never mind that most of the clients were using parallel-port connected with Connectix Quickcams and other horrible quality cameras. What's old is new again!

  3. Re:News that... by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    "matter?"

    You got that wrong, the news is for nerds, it's the stuff that matters, not the news.

  4. Utter chaos by saltydogdesign · · Score: 1

    I can't even begin to imagine this being useful. But I can imagine it producing 32 headaches.

    --
    // This is not a sig.
    1. Re:Utter chaos by Aqualung812 · · Score: 1

      I can't even begin to imagine this being useful.

      Keep in mind that the feature here is basically an improvement from 2 nodes to 3-32 nodes.

      I plan to use the feature frequently for my family of 4. I can even see sometimes using it while my parents are out of town and have 6 people on a single FaceTime call.

      My hope is that they're pausing this to add some conference control features, such as a "broadcast mode", like WebEx and many other things have. This will mute all attendees and allow a single speaker to talk at a time.

      If they add that, 32 is not an unrealistic number.

      --
      Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
  5. Re:still waiting... by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 2

    Remember when Pope Jobs said they were going to open up FaceTime and make it cross-platform?

    If you remember that, you should also remember they were sued, successfully, by the patent troll that claimed to own the protocol. Jobs spoke without consulting with anyone, and prior to the lawsuit.

    But all the Apple Hating Slashtards CONVEEENIENTLY forget THAT part...

  6. Re:still waiting... by DRJlaw · · Score: 1

    ...you should also remember they were sued, successfully, by the patent troll that claimed to own the protocol...

    Which would make them not patent trolls. They defended their patents against the most well-funded legal team in existence, and showed that the protocol used their invention. They most certainly did not claim to own the protocol.

  7. Re:still waiting... by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 1

    ...you should also remember they were sued, successfully, by the patent troll that claimed to own the protocol...

    Which would make them not patent trolls. They defended their patents against the most well-funded legal team in existence, and showed that the protocol used their invention. They most certainly did not claim to own the protocol.

    They were/are Patent Trolls. First it was FaceTime, then it was iMessage. I didn't call them Patent Trolls, the entire Tech-Press did:

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/...

    https://www.engadget.com/2017/...

    https://gizmodo.com/apple-orde...

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/02...

    http://fortune.com/2016/02/03/...

    https://www.cultofmac.com/4302...

    https://www.macrumors.com/2018...

    Oh, and this Discussion Thread EXACTLY addresses the original question:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/apple...

    etc. etc...

    VirnetX patented something fairly obvious that they had no intention of ever bringing to market, which, after all, is the entire reason behind the Patent system, and simply lay-in-wait for someone with deep pockets to accidentally trip-into their patent-trap.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    Significantly helped along by:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    I mean, the obvious corruption got so bad that the Supremes had to put a stop to it!

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

    So, don't paint Apple as the bad guy here.