The 5 best alternatives to FaceTime for Android
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Let’s face it: Google managed to loosen Apple’s stranglehold on the mobile market. They’ve won — or at least, they haven’t lost — and that’s quite an achievement, but Apple’s experience in mobile software still gives them the edge in a number of areas, and video chatting is one of them. FaceTime, iOS’s native video app, is a solid program that has been polished to a shine, and it’s quickly becoming a generic verb like Xerox. You don’t video chat someone, you FaceTime them. With an Android phone, though, you can’t.
That’s what’s great about the open marketplace of ideas that is the Google Play store, though. If you need an Android alternative to FaceTime, you have not one, but several, to choose from. We took the leading candidates for a test drive to compare them with each other, taking into account price, reliability, restrictions, and features. Here’s our list of the five best alternatives to FaceTime for Android.
Google Hangouts
The out-of-the-box alternative to FaceTime isn’t all that bad. Hangouts is Google’s service for both real-time text chat and video. One of the best things about it is that it’s massively cross-platform and linked to your Google ID. Not only does Hangouts work great on every Android phone, you can take it to your desktop — even your Mac desktop. Hangouts replaced Google Talk as the native chat app within Gmail (and Google+, but let’s not talk about that) a few years back, and the team has refined it a lot since then.
One thing that’s cool about Hangouts is that it works beyond simple person-to-person connections. The platform supports multiple-person conversations for up to ten people. Google also offers a mobile version for iOS. One advantage that Hangouts has over FaceTime is its data latency management. While Apple recommends only using FaceTime while connected to a wireless Internet connection, Hangouts deals much better with standard cellular data rates. In addition, voice calls to other Hangouts users are completely free.
If you have an Android phone (), you should also have a Google account — it’s the key to all of the company’s awesome services, including Hangouts. Keeping your address book in order lets you merge all of your message streams into one easy-to-follow feed. The only complaint that we had is that there are occasionally unexplained glitches and bugs during calls, but they were rare.
When you think about video chat services, Skype is the gray-haired grandfather that still manages to hang on. First released in 2003, the system shared a back end with music-sharing system Kazaa (remember music-sharing systems?). It grew steadily until 2011, when it was acquired by Microsoft to replace Windows Live Messenger. Obviously, that makes it the default messaging client for Windows phones, but the Android versions are quite solid.
Early versions of Skype for Android weren’t well-integrated with your mobile device’s address book, making adding contacts a chore. In 2014, the 5.0 update finally brought it into harmony with the Android ecosystem, allowing it to access your existing contents. This simple change rocketed Skype into the upper echelon of Android video chat services.
Skype’s video chat services work in a variety of bandwidth situations, and keeps a constant monitor of the quality of the call you are currently on. You are able to score the call afterwards, and depending on what hardware you are using to make the video call, the video can be transmitted in HD.
Basic Skype accounts are free and allow you unlimited one-on-one video chat across any supported platform — mobile and desktop alike. Skype used to charge a subscription fee for multi-user video chats, but now group chats are included in the basic service. They do still charge either by the minute or with a monthly subscription for calls to phone users outside of the Skype service.
Viber started out as a text and audio messaging app, but quickly realized that they would need to add features to compete in a crowded marketplace. First they worked to replicate audio chat like Skype, and then in 2014 introduced video chat functionality. Although they are relatively new to the marketplace, Viber has build their brand into a strong alternative to existing platforms like FaceTime and Skype.
One of the best aspects of Viber is the app’s clean and intuitive design. Whereas Skype and Hangouts seem like desktop legacy apps that have been awkwardly transitioned to mobile experiences, Viber was built from the ground up with your phone screen in mind. In 2013, they did introduce a desktop app as well, but the clear focus is still on mobile.
The biggest weakness that Viber has in comparison with the other apps on this list is that it has no way of communicating with users outside of its service. Unlike other platforms that utilize SMS protocol, you can’t send messages to contacts who aren’t Viber users from within Viber. And where most people with Android devices have Google accounts by default for Hangouts, it’s not the case here. The service does boast 280 million users around the world, so it’s not just a niche thing.
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Apple Fixes FaceTime on Older Versions of OS X, iOS 6 Still Not Working
Tuesday April 22,
Apple tonight released an update for
[], which resolves connections issues and is recommended for all FaceTime users currently running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
The connection issues are presumably related to the problems
which affected both older versions of OS X and iOS 6 versions of FaceTime.
Apple, however, has not yet addressed the problems with FaceTime that are in iOS 6. While it is encouraging that Apple released an update for FaceTime for OS X 10.6, Apple support's recommendations for iOS 6 users has been to upgrade to iOS 7.
has quoted Apple support as saying that the only fix for iOS 6 is to upgrade to the latest version of iOS 7, with no current plans to release a fix on iOS 6 or iOS 5.
According to Apple's , users who are still having trouble with the application are recommended to update to the latest version of iOS or OS X.
Welp I guess no more FaceTime for me. It was fun while it lasted guys ?
In the UK at least, you can still connect and use a 100 year old pulse dialling telephone.
With Apple we're supposed to grateful if something still works after 3 years. Progress :rolleyes:
Rating: 13 Votes
As an iPod Touch 4 owner, this really sucks. The iPT4 never got an upgrade to iOS 7, and was heavily marketed as an inexpensive way to FaceTime. Thanks, Apple! :mad:
Rating: 13 Votes
In terms of iOS devices, the earliest devices to support FaceTime are the iPhone 4, iPod touch 4th generation, and the iPad 2.
The iPhone 4 and iPad 2 can be updated to iOS 7.x, and that's a solution. The iPod touch 4th generation cannot, at least not unless Apple changes its mind and gets an iOS 7.x out the door for that device. It appears to be the only FaceTime-capable device unable to upgrade to iOS 7.x.
As I write this, Apple is still selling refurbished 4th generation iPod touch devices in many of Apple's online stores around the world. These devices are prominently advertised as supporting FaceTime. In many countries Apple's failure to fix FaceTime would be illegal especially given these continuing sales direct from Apple.
I think Apple is going to fix FaceTime on the 4th generation iPod touch and rather quickly. I don't think Apple wants the lawsuits they'd probably lose. It'd also be at least the polite thing to do to add FaceTime Audio to the 4th generation iPod touch to set a common, baseline service level. Or at least figure out how to produce a more sensible error message ("You are trying to contact a person with a device that does not support FaceTime Audio. Would you like to try FaceTime Video instead?") on iOS 7+ devices attempting to contact 4th generation iPod touch users via FaceTime Audio.
Live by the cloud, die by the cloud. If you go into the utility business, Apple, you better act like a (premium) utility. And it's not as if there aren't competitors on Apple's own platforms. Microsoft with Skype, notably -- and Microsoft would be delighted to welcome FaceTime refugees.
Steve Jobs himself did not tolerate this sort of fumbling with MobileMe, and I'm sure he wouldn't tolerate these FaceTime failures either.
Rating: 11 Votes
It got an update to iOS 6 (and bug fixes through February 2014). A lot of people didn't think it would make it that far. It only has 256MB RAM, and no device supported by iOS 7 has less than 512MB of RAM.
The original iPad has similar hardware and runs quite a bit faster, but was dropped at iOS 5.1.1.
Thats also not a valid excuse. Who was cheap and put only 256MB of RAM in the iPad and 4th gen iPod touch? Yup, Apple did!:rolleyes:
Those devices even when they ran iOS 4 (not even the max OS allowed) still sucked when using tabs in Safari. Constantly reloading, some sites wouldn't load with out Safari crashing thanks to the lack of RAM.
Apple could have doubled it to 512MB like the iPhone 4 for pretty much nothing.
Rating: 9 Votes
So does this apply to devices that cannot upgrade to iOS 7 or is it just those devices that can run iOS 7 but users have chosen not to upgrade? If it's the former they for sure need to fix it. If it's the latter you're probably screwed. But staying on iOS 6 indefinitely is pointless IMO because the ship has sailed and you're not getting an iOS 6 style UI back. So if iOS 7 bothers you that much then I guess it's off to Android or Windows Phone for you. Or you keep the phone you have and don't upgrade.
If someone wants to stay on ios6, then good for them. A software upgrade dosent automatically mean better to everyone. Its the magical word "choice".
Rating: 7 Votes
Hahaha, so Apple makes the software itself, makes the hardware itself, and it still breaks.
Have the ios team all fallen apart without Forstall?
As its Apple we will never know.
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It's really time users running iOS 6, update to iOS 7.
Yes, yes that's right, its time all those people threw their iPod Touches in the bin and upgraded :rolleyes: how dare they keep them and complain about something that worked perfectly fine last week is broken this week.
Rating: 5 Votes
Ah, I love seeing that icon again. Come to think of it, why would a camera have a lense embedded in the side of it?
Rating: 5 Votes
It got an update to iOS 6 (and bug fixes through February 2014). A lot of people didn't think it would make it that far. It only has 256MB RAM, and no device supported by iOS 7 has less than 512MB of RAM.
The original iPad has similar hardware and runs quite a bit faster, but was dropped at iOS 5.1.1.
Not getting updates and having a working service stop working, only to have a company suggest a "solution" that isn't possible for some users (by no fault of their own) is unacceptable.
Apple needs to fix it, they can't just stop allowing major services to function.
I believe it is some bug that is being worked out and there will be a patch soon.
Whoever suggested upgrading to iOS 7 is likely a support rep with no knowledge of the bug causing the problem.
Rating: 5 Votes
It's really time users running iOS 6, update to iOS 7.
I can imagine the same comment years ago but with other software.
It's really time users running Windows XP, update to Windows Vista.
Why is it that people on here hate choice so much!
Rating: 4 Votes
It's really time users running iOS 6, update to iOS 7.
Who are you to tell me what I should upgrade to?
iOS 6 is working perfectly fine for me on my iPad 3.
I have no desire to put that crap operating system iOS 7 on it.
People should not be forced to upgrade to anything!
If it works for them, that is all that matters.
Rating: 4 Votes
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