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Questionable Rumor Suggests Group FaceTime is Coming in iOS 11

Friday January 20, 2017 1:48 pm PST by Juli Clover
Group FaceTime calls will be a new feature introduced in iOS 11, according to an unverified rumor shared by Israeli site The Verifier. Citing "several people familiar with iOS development," the site says group FaceTime calls are being worked on by Apple's iOS 11 team, with some of the work taking place in Israel.

Said to be a "social" update that focuses on iMessage and FaceTime development, iOS 11 will reportedly let users start multi-person calls through a group conversation in iMessage. Up to five people at once will be able to participate in a call.

facetime
The Verifier is not a site with an established track record for accurate rumors, so it is not clear how reliable this information is. We've heard few details on iOS 11 at this point in time, so the rumor should be viewed with skepticism until backed up by a secondary source.

The site also says that Apple could choose not to release group FaceTime calls in iOS 11, instead saving the feature for a future update.

Group FaceTime calls have been a long-desired feature on iOS and Mac devices, and would go a long way towards bringing FaceTime more in line with Microsoft's Skype software, which allows several people to communicate with one another through video chats.

iOS 11 will likely be released alongside new iPhones in the fall of 2017, but we expect to see a preview of the new software at the Worldwide Developers Conference, likely to be held in June of 2017.

Related Roundup: iOS 11
Tag: FaceTime
[ 136 comments ]


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Analog Kid
18 months ago
Huh, didn't realize this wasn't possible already. Didn't iChat allow group video conversations?
Rating: 17 Votes
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farewelwilliams
18 months ago
*looks at the photo*
you know you can already fit more than one person on one end of the facetime chat by extending your arm out, right?
Rating: 16 Votes
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motm95
18 months ago
This update to FaceTime would be nice, but I would much prefer Apple release iMessage for Android.
Rating: 13 Votes
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Appleaker
18 months ago
Hopefully this is true. It would also make sense if Apple is to focus on iPad features this year (Although it wouldn't be exclusive to iPad)
Rating: 11 Votes
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Scotty2Hotty
18 months ago
Bout' time!
Rating: 9 Votes
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Slix
18 months ago
Welcome to 2005, with iChat AV, on Mac OS X Tiger.

:P

I hope this is true though, I've been wanting this since about iOS 7.
Rating: 8 Votes
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jerry16
18 months ago

Said to be a "social" update that focuses on iMessage and FaceTime development


Hopefully this means they are going to clean up the Messages interface some. I love the new features from iOS 10 - particularly the gifs being integrated - but it is so clunky getting to them. It's a very unintuitive process.
Rating: 7 Votes
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kstotlani
18 months ago
I thought all rumors were questionable.
Rating: 7 Votes
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JGIGS
18 months ago
Wake me up when Apple releases facetime and imessage for multi / web platforms. Since Android and other platforms aren't going away I find Apple only social apps kinda useless.
Rating: 7 Votes
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iKnowMr.Jobs
18 months ago
Not that I use FaceTime All that often, but it always did puzzle me that Apple never expanded its feature set to match iChat's back in 2009 (Snow Leopard). Then again, I never heard many people complaining about it...
Rating: 6 Votes

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