FaceTime is one of my favorite features, and I’ve been using it even more with the introduction of FaceTime audio in iOS 7. I think it is one of the most under-rated features of the iPhone.
I have been a long time Skype user, but ever since Apple launched FaceTime, it has been my preferred service, when it comes to VoIP calls. The quality of the video and audio calls using FaceTime is just brilliant. I only use Skype or Hangouts if I’ve to call someone who doesn’t have an iOS device.
While you don’t have to pay your carrier for FaceTime calls, you do end up paying for the data when you’re on a cellular network assuming you don’t have an unlimited data plan.
In iOS 8, Apple added a nifty little enhancement, which gives you information about how much data was used by a FaceTime audio or video call. In case, you didn’t notice it, here’s how to find the data usage.
How to find out how much data is used by FaceTime audio and video calls
- Launch the FaceTime app.
- Tap on the Video or Audio tab.
- Tap on the small “i” or information icon to the right of the Contact Name.
- On the Info screen, you should be able to see the call history with details such as whether it was an incoming or outgoing FaceTime call, the duration of the call etc. You will also notice that it also displays the data used for the call.
You can access this information also via the Recents tab in the Phone app.
As you can see that a 5 minute FaceTime video call used 42MB data. Similarly, a 6 minutes FaceTime audio call used only 4MB data. You can use this information to calculate how much it costs to make a FaceTime call based on how much it costs for your data plan.
You can treat FaceTime calls as free if you’re on a Wi-Fi network or on an unlimited data plan, but you should probably consider how much it costs when you make calls on a cellular network with a plan that has data caps. Though in most cases it should still be much cheaper than a regular voice call.
