So, you’ve got a shiny new iPhone 4 in your pocket and you can’t wait to try out the new FaceTime video calling feature that Apple so brilliantly integrated into iOS 4. The first thing you have to do is to find out which of your friends already have an iPhone 4. Then, you have to make sure that they’re on a WiFi connection so that the FaceTime video chat will work. Then, once you’ve initialized the FaceTime call, you have to hope that the person on the other end will actually pick up your call – since you can’t exactly leave a video message for them. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a contact list that showed you exactly who has an iPhone 4 and is actually ready to have some FaceTime? Well, that’s where the upcoming FacePlant iPhone app comes into play.
Created by the makers of 12seconds and Rally Up, FacePlant aggregates all iPhone 4 users into a contact list that automagically shows you when a contact is available for FaceTime. Once you’ve signed up for a FacePlant account, the app scours your contact list for people that are registered with the service. Contacts that are online and willing to video chat with you show up in orange, offline contacts show up in gray.
When you’re ready to get some face-to-face convo’s going, you just fire up the FacePlant app, see who’s online and tap the contact to initiate a connection. You can choose to initiate FaceTime or just send the person a video message. You can also send offline contacts a short video-mail message that will show up in their FacePlant app as a truly “visual” voicemail. The video-mail feature is actually pretty interesting and makes it possible to leave snippets of videos for your friends to enjoy – all without having to actually complete a FaceTime call.
According to TUAW, FacePlant should be available in the AppStore soon. We’ll be sure to let you know when that happens!
But, before the app goes live, we’d like to know if you, dear reader, think FacePlant’s concept is sound. Would you use FacePlant? Does it sound like something that would help you use FaceTime more often? Perhaps from your racing yacht? Sound off below!
[Via: TUAW]