Switching from an Android to an iPhone is not the only way to Facetime your friends with a little-known hack making it a possibility.
Thanks to the iOS 15 update, iPhone owners can invite their Android-owning friends and family to join a Facetime call by opening the app and creating a join link.
Clicking into the person’s name to join a video call still isn’t an option, but immediately after opening the Facetime app, at the top of the screen are two options: ‘Create a Link’ and ‘New Facetime.’
IPhone users can create a FaceTime link for Android users to join a video call. The link will open the call in the Android’s browser.
A notification below ‘create a link’ says iPhone users can select the button to invite anyone to a call, even Android users and Windows devices.
The feature works similar to a Zoom call – once the link is selected, an option to add names to the link will appear and after selecting the person’s name, it will automatically generate a text to that person with the link attached.
When the Android user clicks on the link, it will launch the FaceTime call in either their Chrome or Edge website browser.
Other browsers like Firefox and Samsung may not recognize the link and instead populate an error message.
As with iPhone-to-iPhone text message groups, users can name the FaceTime group before sending out the link by selecting the ‘Add Name’ option and typing in a name like ‘family call,’ ‘book club,’ or ‘girls night,’ to name a few.
The FaceTime link’s creator can add a name to the group explaining what the call will be about.
The feature also attempts to compete with other video call options like Google Meets or Zoom by including the calendar option to schedule FaceTime calls in advance.
By selecting the ‘Add’ or ‘+’ icon at the top of the Apple Calendar app, iPhone users can type ‘video call’ into the location bar and select FaceTime or paste the link created for non-iPhone users directly into the app.
You can share the link with others by opening up the FaceTime app where the upcoming scheduled call will have synced from the calendar and can be directly shared.
The great thing about the hack is that, unlike other video calls, the links don’t expire automatically, so you can keep using the same link for all future calls with the same people.
If you want to disable the link, the person who created the link will have to delete it by swiping left on the link name via the app’s home screen and selecting the ‘delete’ button.
Users can also delete the link by tapping the ‘i’ icon on the right side of the tab and then selecting ‘delete link.’
However, once the link is created, Android users, this is your time to shine and initiate a FaceTime call.
Once you have the FaceTime link, Android users can bookmark it in their browser and click the ‘Join’ button which will send a notification to the iPhone user who created the link.
The iPhone user will see a notification that ‘someone requested to join,’ and can then tap the notification to start the call initiated by the non-Apple user.
Apple rolled out the FaceTime link option at the Worldwide Developers Conference in March 2021, but somehow, it still remains one of Apple’s best-kept secrets.
