The App I Thought Was Pointless...But It Isn't.

FaceTime.

When the commercials came on last year for the iPhone 4 and the 'cool new app,' I wanted to gag. The wife, obviously in the bathroom, Face timing her husband about that 'project we've been working on' and getting this goofy look on her face? She does all but show him the HPT in the commercial.


We had some fun around here picking on the cheesiness of the commercial. Apparently, we weren't alone in thinking they were lame, because You Tube is filled with parodies that are a little more risqué than I'd prefer to post. I didn't realize it at the time, but MacBook 1.0 (a/k/a Mi Manzana) was outfitted with the program, as was MacBook 2.0.

At work, many of the staffers were given iPads a few weeks ago. As a contractor, I didn't get one, but I have Apple savvy that my coworkers have called upon a lot since the devices were distributed. A few days ago, my boss calls me and asked if I had my laptop with me, then if it had the app. Yes to one, no (I thought) to the other. She asked me to gather the rest of the team and have one of them FaceTime her when we had everyone (until today, we were scattered all over.)

So we did and wow, what a cool way to get a message out quickly to the team (our little meeting was about a new hire.) I liked it and promptly went to the App store to see if it was available for the MacBook. I went to purchase it and iTunes informed me I have it.

So I FaceTimed the coworker, who laughed her ass off at my personal email address. Meanwhile, she was making funny faces on the thing during our whole conversation, so I was laughing hysterically and finding it hard to answer why my email addy is a Disney character's name and how the heck I don't have a six digit number after it. (Beta tester, baby, back when Gmail only allowed you to invite 5 people at a time.)

In a few days, we've rapidly switched from me calling someone to tell them their appointment has arrived, or emailing about something I was working on, and not getting answered to FaceTiming and after you get rejected by the person as 'not available,' the email gets answered. More often than not, its going to be answered with some sort of facial expression designed to make the caller laugh their butt off to the point that they forget why they called in the first place.

In fact, the boss was out of the office, we're moving into new offices where our phones and computers were not hooked up, but we were able to keep in touch because of that cheesy app. Then tonight, I tried 'calling' Ed's iPad-and he wanted to know what was ringing. Once he realized, he answered the thing and proved it must be universal to make faces into the thing.

Those commercials are still cheesy, but I think it would have been more accurate if the people featured in them were making blowfish faces.

I need to figure out if the app is less of a battery hog on the iPad...



Comments

JW said…
Isn't the face time thing on the ipod as well? I have it on mine but never use it because I don't know anyone who has it. Like you, I wonder how much of a battery hog it would be.

I think this facetime thing could be a fun and constructive thing but not enough people have it or really know how to use it.

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