For the longest time ever, FaceTime was pretty much exclusive to all iOS and macOS devices. Want to FaceTime with a friend? They don’t have an iOS or macOS device? Too bad. Or at least that was the case until today. At WWDC 2021, Apple has announced that FaceTime will finally be coming to Windows and Android devices.
Now before you get too excited, Apple isn’t creating a FaceTime app for these platforms. Instead, what Apple is doing is that they’re allowing FaceTime users to create a link that when opened on the web either on your desktop browser or Android browser will let you join in on a FaceTime call.
This means that in terms of initiating the call, it will only be available to Apple users, meaning that if you’re an Android user who wants to FaceTime their Apple friend, you can’t and you’ll have to wait for them to create the link that lets you join. This link-creation method isn’t new and we’ve seen it done for other platforms such as Zoom, but it’s interesting that this is something that Apple is looking into now.
There is no word on a launch date for the new feature, but presumably it will be part of the iOS 15 release which should take place later this fall.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Facetime, iOS, Ios 15, Windows, Wwdc and Wwdc 2021.