How to setup FaceTime for Mac and call yourself
2010-10-21 12:37:54
FaceTime for Mac, which you can download right now, works pretty flawlessly so long as you have entries in your Address Book. Unlike me, i never sync my iPhone with my iTunes so my Address Book is empty. LOL. The FaceTime app installs it self, dont drag and drop the .mpkg to your Applications folder. Just run the .mpkg file as normal.
Once installation is done, you will be asked to sign-in your Apple ID (Which is the ID you use to purchase apps in Appstore on your iPhone) If you dont own an iPhone, just register a new Apple ID if you dont already have one. Next it will ask you to enter an email to be reached at. This is IMPORTANT as it will be the way how people gonna call you on your Mac. So if anybody want's to call you on FaceTime on their iPhone, this is the email ID you need to give them.
But dont worry thinking which email you gonna use, you can add additional emails later on. Which i unsuccessfully couldn't :( do it. Don't know why. It kept saying "Error" (Very vague) Im suspecting that i dont have email setup on my Mac hence they cant send the email to verify. Too bad, im a Cloud Email / Gmail user.
Once done, you are now ready to FaceTime with everybody with a FaceTime supported iOS device. So let's give it a try. If you have an iPhone, CALL YOURSELF :P Hehe, here's how to do so. If you calling from your Mac -> iPhone then all you have to do is pick your own number in your Address Book (If you the kind who keys in self-contact in own phone) If you dont, open up Address Book and add an entry of yourself in it.
Then go back to the FaceTime App and dial your own number. It takes a while before your iPhone rings. Make sure you are connected on Wifi else this wont work because FaceTime only works in WiFi. Once you get that to work, feel free to make funny faces to yourself and enjoy the moment talking to yourself.
If you want to make FaceTime from iPhone -> Mac at home to talk to your mom at home. Just create a new contact i.e. myself Arsyan [FaceTime] and add the email field with the email ID you use during the registration.
Then click on that contact -> FaceTime and it will start dialing and you should see notification on your Mac. Pretty awesome i must say. Even if you had close the FaceTime App.
The notification will still appear as some service of daemon is listening in the background. You can turn it off in the Preferences.
The scary part is that you suddenly see the green icon lit-up on your Mac and that means that somebody is watching you! LOL! But need not to worry, they can only see you once you click Accept in the FaceTime App, although the iSight green light is on. (That's because the FaceTime App has been initiated) So each time you make a Mac FaceTime call, the phone will remember that email ID as a FaceTime Enabled Email, hence a FaceTime icon will appear in your phonebook.
I did a test with @ruhanirabin and ask him to FaceTime Call me direct from his iPhone on my email address instead of my number, and like magic the notification appears.
So now you know how to make FaceTime call to yourself on your Mac, and to others as well, you just need to know their Email Address that they use to identify themselves on the Mac. This is much easier now, with FaceTime App on your Mac, you no longer need a iChat AIM account to make video calls, since not a lot of people outside the USA have AIM nor iChat account and its freakin hard to get them to do so. Now all we need is to install FaceTime App and link to an email address. It's much simpler now! THANKS APPLE! What a wonderful feature to have.
Scary part of this FaceTime phenomenon is ...
1. Anybody can call anybody's Mac as long as they know their email address. Same goes with their phone numbers.
2. Facelette.com (Chatroulette for FaceTime) submit your friends email and their phone number and they will get bugged by people around the world.