Hints And Tips For iPhone 4 Video Calling With Facetime

When the iPhone 4 was first released, one of the many features many users were intrigued about was FaceTime, Apple's Wi-Fi video calling application. The feature wasn't the first in the market, for example the HTC Evo 4G had a similar feature with it's front-facing camera capabilities as well but it was still something that many people didn't have experience with. After playing around with the feature ourselves we found some tips and tricks that people can use to enhance their video calling experience.

One of the many interesting things many people might not know about is the fact that FaceTime calls over Wi-Fi work with Airplane Mode enabled. You need to have the phone number of the recieving iPhone 4 and connect at least once via voice call in order to establish that devices on both ends are indeed iPhone 4s. After the connection is estabished, you can hit Airplane mode and turn on Wi-Fi only and still make FaceTime calls. Have any of you had the opportunity to make FaceTime calls from an airplane with Wi-Fi service? (Virgin America comes to mind here)

Users can FaceTIme over 3G using a MyFi and Overdrive. If you are one of the lucky people to have a Verizon or Sprint MyFi or Overdrive mobile broadband router than you can FaceTime using the device as your Wi-Fi hotspot. Depending on the strength of your wireless connection, your FaceTime call should work appropriately. One thing we did notice was that the call was dropped when there was lots of motion on one end or the other. This could be due to quick use of a large amount of bandwidth due to changing all of the pixels on the screen.

Hold the phone up to avoid bad picture angles. Many people hold the phone lower than their face and that results in weird angled video and a perfect angle at looking inside someone's nose. Unless that is the purpose of your video call, you might want to hold your phone up or look down appropriately to make sure you are seeing each other face to face instead of showing someone the insides of your nose.

Are you addicted to video calling already? If so, you might find yourself talking for long periods of time. After some time of talking though, you might notice your arm getting tired for holding up the iPhone 4 for suc a long time. One of the things you can consider is geting a stand to put your iphone on top of so that you don't have to hold it. You don't have to go out of your way to get a special case with a kick-stand or anything, in many cases 99 cent Rubbermaid business card holders can often do the same trick and it can be picked up at most office supply stores. Once you pop the iPhone onto it you should be good to go for a while or at least until your battery runs out.

You can also use the back-facing camera that many people seem to forget about. The front-facing camera is definitely a novelty on the iPhone 4, because of it many users forget that you can show the person you are calling what's on the other side of the phone as well. One the FaceTime screen you'll see a little icon that lets you switch between the two cameras. Don't forget that you can use it to keep each other entertained or show someone more than just yourself without tilting the iphone 4 around.

Keep an eye out for bright light in the background that can cause horrible video quality. Although the iPhone 4 is probably the best camera Apple has ever delivered it still has its downsides, bright light being one of them. If there is bright light in the background, it underexposes the foreground object, most often your face. If you just move the position of your device, you can omit the background brightness and make the main object much more visible.

The above mentioned points were just a few things that we experienced during our video calling sessions. There are a couple of things to also keep in mind, if you are one of the people who haven't had an opportunity to try out FaceTime with your iPhone 4, you can call 1-888-FACETIME from your iPhone to have an instructive session with an Apple employee.

More recently, we also posted about a video calling alternative as well, Fring. The company used the software necsesary to update their application allowing two-way video calling utilizing the front-facing camera as well. The difference? Fring allows you to make calls not only on Wi-Fi but also over the 3G network AND you can make video-calls with users who own other devices with video calling capabilities, such as the HTC Evo 4G. If you are interested in checking out Fring for your iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS, check it out at iTunes by clicking here.

If you have an interesting experience with video calling, share them by posting a comment below!