The new iPad is being well received for its new Retina Display and its lightning-fast support of 4G LTE but don’t try and make FaceTime calls over that 4G because the Apple video calling service is still limited to WiFi.
According to the Verge, when you connect try to make a FaceTime call over 4G LTE, you’re given a prompt to connect to a WiFi hotspot. This comes despite the fact that we’ve seen reports of the new iPad doing over 20 Mbps on the downstream. Additionally, you can use the new Verizon iPad 4G LTE as a hotspot and could then theoretically FaceTime over another iPad via the LTE-derived WiFi.
I suppose this could be a good thing overall, as the data plans for the new iPads seem very easy to go over with 4G LTE support without the FaceTime ability. Still, it’s weird to see that Apple hasn’t locked down this function with mobile carriers yet, as it said that it planned to after it first introduced FaceTime with the iPhone 4. Competitors like Skype and Tango manage to do high-quality video calling over 3G, so we have to wonder what the deal is.
[Via TheVerge]