As soon as Federico switched to Wide Spectrum audio, the music I could hear faintly in the background as we talked in Standard mode gained definition and clarity.
One obvious use case is for remote music lessons or to share a song you’ve learned on a musical instrument with friends and family.
IPAD FACETIME FULL
Instead of focusing on the vocals of the caller, Wide Spectrum enhances the full range of sound picked up by your device’s microphone. Wide Spectrum audio does the exact opposite of Voice Isolation for those times when you want whomever you call to hear the sounds around you. However, as soon as Federico turned on Voice Isolation, the music disappeared completely, the echo was eliminated, and his voice came through loud and clear. In the default Standard mode, I could hear the music, and Federico’s voice was a little echoey as it bounced off the walls of his apartment and into his iPad Pro’s microphone. As we talked, he started streaming music from his iPhone in the background. In my tests with Federico, the results were impressive. Voice Isolation seems to combine essentially noise cancellation, which boosts vocals while reducing background sounds. The other two audio effects, Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum, were much more noticeable in my testing. However, even a small improvement in some situations is welcome. I have only tested FaceTime in one-on-one situations so far, where the Spatial Audio effect wasn’t particularly noticeable, although I imagine it could make a bigger difference on large group calls. Whether you’re using headphones or not, the effect makes the voice of whoever is speaking seem as though it’s coming from their image on the screen of your device. If you’ve used Spatial Audio with Apple Music, the idea is the same. Apple doesn’t list hardware limitations for the other FaceTime audio modes. Spatial Audio also runs on Macs released in 2018 or later. For the iPad, that includes the 2019 iPad Air and mini, the 8th generation iPad released in 2020 or later.
For the iPhone, that means the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR, which debuted in 2018 or later. Spatial Audio is limited to iPhones and iPads that include the A12 Bionic chip or later. With iOS and iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey, Apple is adding Spatial Audio, as well as Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum audio modes to FaceTime. I’m skeptical that SharePlay will be the hit that Apple’s marketing suggests the company hopes it will be, but even putting SharePlay aside, the app is getting some major improvements that I think everyone will appreciate, so let’s dig in. Nor is it surprising that Apple announced SharePlay, which won’t ship until later this fall, so friends and family who can’t be together can still enjoy synchronized group activities like watching a video or listening to music. So, it’s not surprising that this year’s FaceTime updates focus on fundamentals like audio and video quality and making the app available outside of Apple’s ecosystem, allowing it to compete better with other services. The app had plenty of competition from Zoom, Skype, and other services. Of course, FaceTime isn’t the only way have kept in touch. However, with the pandemic, it became more important than ever, playing a critical role in the way friends and family have stayed connected. FaceTime has been a centerpiece feature across all of Apple’s platforms for a long time.