FaceTime, Messages and Memoji
FaceTime gets a social boost with SharePlay, photos are better in Messages, and there are new Memoji accessories
What’s new in FaceTime
The headline new feature in FaceTime is SharePlay, which enables you to hold watching or listening parties on group calls with friends. When you watch a movie or TV programme, playback and controls are synced, and when someone on the call speaks, the video volume dips. SharePlay also enables you to share your screen with others on the call. However, SharePlay won’t be available at launch as planned and will now appear as an update.
Grid View enables you to see participants tiled on the screen, and spatial audio makes it sound like a person’s voice is coming from their position on screen. Portrait mode allows you to blur your background, and you can now invite friends who don’t have an Apple device, by sending them a link that opens the call in a web browser.
What’s new in Messages
Messages got a hefty upgrade in iOS 14, and this time around the changes are more modest. Links, images and other content sent to you in Messages now appear in a Shared with You section in the relevant app. For example, if the content is an Apple News story, it appears in Apple News. If it’s a web link, it will appear in Safari. And multiple photos sent in a message are now stacked. You can swipe through them, tap to view them as a grid, or save them to your Photos Library. The animation when you swipe through images is reminiscent of riffling through a deck of cards – emphasised by the rounded rectangular shape of the images. It’s a much more elegant way to deal with multiple photos than displaying them one above the other as they are sent.
What’s new in Memoji
Memoji have become hugely popular since they were first introduced on the iPhone X, both in their animated form, where they change as your facial expression changes, and as stickers. In iOS 15, Apple has added customisable outfits in up to three different colours, accessibility options such as cochlear implants, oxygen tubes and soft helmets, and multi-coloured headwear. There are also new stickers that enable you to send gestures such as a hand wave or light bulb moment, and you can now select a different colour for each eye. There are also new options for spectacles including heart- and star-shaped glasses.
Animated Memoji can be used in FaceTime or Messages – where you create a video of up to 30 seconds to send to a recipient – and Memoji Stickers can be used in any app that takes text input.