How FaceTime was created

In 2010, and with the announcement of the iPhone 4, Apple simultaneously showed the world a new service, FaceTime, the application that allowed us to make video calls through our iPhone . What we didn’t know until now is that the product came out thanks to Game Center.

Former Apple engineer Roberto Garcia has been one of those who has had to testify in the Samsung vs. Apple patent trial. And during these statements we have been able to learn the true history of FaceTime .

As early as 2007, Apple engineers looked for a way to call from an iPhone to a Mac, but decided to wait until 2008, when the iPhone became much more popular. That’s when they looked for a way to use the iPhone to chat between people who were playing together , that is, a way to integrate a chat in Game Center -which didn’t exist yet either-.

The project was renamed Venice, a project in which several Apple engineers worked together to achieve an audio and video service that would connect users. A project where thousands of lines of code were written from scratch, to achieve what we now know as FaceTime.

During the 2010 keynote, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs showed us all how his new invention worked. The first public call on FaceTime was made between Steve Jobs and Jony Ive , live, to show us how easy the service was to use.

As if this wasn’t enough Steve promised us that FaceTime would be an industry standard , thus opening the door for other manufacturers. But this has not been the case, and today the service can only be used between Apple devices: Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

As a last curious fact, during Roberto Garcia’s statements we could hear these words:

This means that FaceTime – like most Apple services – has extra protection that prevents us from being exposed to third parties. Something that is appreciated.