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Facetiming: Really popular on Samsungs

Have you been seeing folk with Samsungs Facetiming in the street?

I have.

I am routinely witnessing this almost daily in and around London.

I was in Scotland the other day on business and one of the ladies ahead of me in the taxi queue at Edinburgh Airport flipped out her S4 and proceeded to say goodnight to her children via video call. I glanced quickly enough to see she was running on 4G (and, I think, EE).

The other day I walked toward Islington tube station and was astonished to see a young twentysomething speaking with two of her friends via video call.

She was holding the phone up — as you do — and doing the whole thing, without any embarrassment or hesitation.

I’m a regular Facetimer, especially if I’m staying up in London or abroad as the children really like it. However I try to keep it private as it’s been my experience that normal mobile users — normobs — still aren’t that comfortable with folk doing it in public.

Witness this post I wrote back in 2011 (“Facetime is still absolutely astonishing for the lay person“).

The interesting thing, though, is that they’ve all been Samsung users. I checked. I haven’t yet seen someone in public doing a Facetime with an iPhone.

Have you seen video calling happening more often in your area? Or is just me?

5 COMMENTS

  1. I think Google are making ‘Facetiming’ across Devices and OS’s much easy with the fabulous ‘Hangouts’ App – Quite often Baby J will ‘call’ his Grandma who’s 250 miles away with her old HTC Desire C via my S4 or my wife’s S4. I like Hangouts immensely, multiple callers, multiple devices, multiple OS’s. Perfect.

  2. I’ve used Hangouts to make video calls plenty of times. They are also free on Giffgaff 🙂 But I would only do it somewhere I can hide!

  3. I never see anyone around south east Wales on a video call. If I was out with my head set, I’d be happy to do it. I use my iPhone 5 (which isn’t my main phone) to video call Ireland and now a friend in London. But that’s not very often. I’ve not used my new HTC one for a vid call yet, and I’ve not used Google hang outs. We need more video calling in our lives. Ooh. I did see someone on a video call few months ago, the guy was deaf, so it was a case of using sign language, he did have to connect charger though! Before making that call.

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