One of the magical and revolutionary features of Apple’s new iPhone 4 is its support for FaceTime, a video chat service that lets two iPhone 4 users talk face-to-face using the phone’s front-facing camera. It’s a nifty feature with one major shortcoming: FaceTime video chat only works over WiFi networks, and not over AT&T’s 3G network. Because of this, it’s impossible to know whether any given contact is available for a FaceTime call without first calling/texting and asking. Impossible without FacePlant, that is.
FacePlant is an app that lets you see which of your contacts are on WiFi networks and available for FaceTime calls, while keeping your contacts up-to-date with your status. You can leave video voicemail for any unavailable contacts. It’s very easy to set up: all you do is enter your name and import your contacts list, and you’re good to go. It uses the iPhone’s background multitasking to keep your status updated on the FacePlant service whenever your network connectivity changes, and it’s really that simple. It’s surprising that Apple didn’t think of this for their own device.
We were privileged to collaborate with Nagel Technologies and 12seconds.tv, the same folks we work with on the Rally Up project, to help build the technology behind FacePlant. FacePlant is powered by our A-Frame development framework, with our easy-bake API.
We hope that Apple approves FacePlant. While we’re waiting for that to happen check out the FacePlant site and sign up for our mailing list, or read all about us on TechCrunch, Gizmodo, New York Times, Wired or The Unofficial Apple Weblog (among many others)