FaceTime as Microsoft Teams alternative

FaceTime is, at its core, Apple's technology for video calls between Apple devices, whether iPhone, iPad or Mac. As of February 24, 2011, FaceTime had finally exited beta and was originally available for $ 0.99 on the Mac App Store. With the introduction of OS X Lion in the summer of the same year, the service then came with the operating system right away. With this introduction, FaceTime has since been a free feature when buying a new iPhone, iPad and Mac. Besides the Apple hardware mentioned, only an Apple ID is necessary to use the service.

Apple's video telephony service has steadily evolved over the years. After FaceTime video calls became possible via the cellular network, little happened for a few years. Until 2018, Apple mainly worked on supporting the different cellular standards from 3G to 4G LTE and most recently 5G and improved the quality of the calls up to a resolution of 1920×1080 under the name FaceTime HD, if the corresponding hardware supports it. FaceTime HD is also available today over Wi-Fi and 5G.

With iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, the option to join a FaceTime call with up to 32 participants was added. The last big step came last year, which is why we also wrote this article. Since last year it is now possible to use Portrait Mode. The background is blurred and focused on the participants. You can also display the participants in a grid. 3D Audio makes you feel that the participants' voices are coming from the appropriate direction in the room. Voice Isolation mode uses machine learning to bring your voice into focus by detecting ambient noise and masking it out. You can now send meeting links when you schedule an event on the calendar and invite attendees. It no longer matters if the other person is using an Android phone or a PC. By clicking on the link, you can join a FaceTime call directly in the browser of your choice, even without needing an Apple ID. However, the quality of the video is then significantly limited compared to the FaceTime HD camera of a current Apple device. Last but not least, you can share the screen and thus share content or presentation in a video call with your counterpart.

All these new features of FaceTime do not hide the fact that competitors have been delivering the same offering for quite some time. Microsoft Teams, for example, wants to be much more than just the possibility to join video calls. Teams sees itself as a collaboration platform for use in companies, public administrations or even educational institutions, whether in the browser or on a technology platform. For example, Teams natively supports Android and Windows in addition to Apple platforms. In the free version, up to 100 participants are possible for video calls and already up to 300 in the smallest paid version. Zoom even supports up to 1000 participants (but only via a so-called Large Meetings add-on). Here, too, there are native apps for all common platforms, and for Apple even optimized for Apple Silicon Macs. The 100 participants mentioned in the free version are also offered by Zoom, Cisco Webex and Google Meet in addition to Microsoft. However, the free versions of the competitors show some limitations. The goal is to make the paid versions appealing to customers. We do not need to go into the feature list here, as the current high level of competition means that a large number of new features are added to the respective platform every month.

How can we now answer FaceTime's claim as an alternative to the top dogs on the market? FaceTime alone does not replace Microsoft Teams or Google Meet. Viewed holistically, Apple's apps, which are included free of charge, can certainly be an alternative, especially the combination of FaceTime, Mail, Calendar, Address Book, Messages. Despite all limitations or missing features, especially smaller companies with up to 32 employees can definitely rely on Apple's native tools. Paired with Apple Business Manager or the upcoming release of Apple Business Essentials, most companies of the size mentioned will find Apple Apps a good alternative to Microsoft Teams. This is especially exciting for Switzerland, as the majority of companies in Switzerland do not even exceed the size of 32 employees.

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