iOS 6: Part 6

Welcome to the next segment in my series about iOS 6. Today we're going to talk about additions and improvements to FaceTime and that thing that you might remember called phoning.





FaceTime:

So the only major change to FaceTime is that you can now use it over cellular and Wi-Fi services. This also extends to iPads where you use your phone number to FaceTime. So FaceTime hasn't really received any drastic changes, but this is quite a handy one, although I feel like it should have been there since the beginning. If you've read my other parts in this series you'd know how critical of everything Apple does these days is and I'm not going to change that now. FaceTime is a great feature, don't get me wrong, but this change isn't the type of big thing that will get me excited.

Phone:

Apple has done something really smart here. For the last few years everyone has spent so much time improving every other aspect of the phone that they sometimes forget about improving the sole thing that phones were originally made to do- that being phone people of course. But Apple remembered this time around and they made some pretty nice enhancements. If you get a phone call but you can't answer it at the moment (say you're driving, at the movies, or in the middle of some important conversation, etc.) then you can swipe up on the screen to reveal options like a set of preset messages that you can quickly select to send to the person notifying them as to why you can't answer like "Can't talk right now, call you later". This is actually such a useful feature that I could see myself using quite often, of course there are those people that never phone at all anymore who might feel that this improvements and the ones that I'm about to talk about are pointless, but for the rest of us this is great.

One of the other options you can select once you've swiped up is the reminder options which remind you based on preset times when to phone that person back. Again this is a feature that I could see myself using. I'm a very forgetful person and I'm constantly setting reminders on my phone for just about everything. So to have one more thing taken care of for me would be a warmly welcomed help.

Up last is the "Do not disturb" options in which you can select to not to be notified about any incoming calls or any other notifications for that matter. You can also pick to only receive calls from a select group of people or contacts. This is probably my least favorite new feature, not because there is anything wrong with it, but because I could see the above two enhancements being more useful.

All in all the new FaceTime features fall short, but the phoning options are greatly enhanced.