During an event in Cupertino this morning, Apple has announced FaceTime for Mac. A beta version of the application is already available to
download.
This partially addresses one of the biggest gripes FaceTime users have had with the service -- lack of support for video chatting with people on their computers. It only partially addresses it though, since it's only available for the Mac as of now (no Windows, no Linux). The other major FaceTime annoyance -- lack of 3G support on the iPhone -- is sadly still there.
To set up FaceTime on the Mac, all you need is an Apple ID and an email address. FaceTime works with the Mac Address Book so you won't have to re-enter all your contacts' details. By default, whenever someone calls you, all your Macs will start ringing, even if you don't have FaceTime actively running. If you don't want this to happen, you'll have to turn FaceTime off from Preferences.
The FaceTime beta is a free download for Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.4 or newer.
Tags: facetime, Mac, video call, video calling, video chat, video conferencing, VideoCall, VideoCalling, VideoChat, VideoConferencing
