FaceTime Confusion

    If you don’t know, FaceTime is a software program similar to Skype.  It allows you to video phone to anyone with an Apple product like an iPhone, iPad, or Mac computer.  It is handy and useful, but recently I discovered that it can have some downsides if you don’t use it much.  

    Joan is visiting friends in Belgium and so the other day about 11:00 AM my time (8:00 in the evening in Belgium), I tried to give the friends a video call on FaceTime from my computer to see how the visit was going.  FaceTime rang and rang, until I was convinced no one was home in Belgium so I hung up.  FaceTime left a message with my friends that I had tried to unsuccessfully to call.  

    I went on with my day, and sometimes during the day my friends tried to return a FaceTime call to me unsuccessfully.  A FaceTime message was left on all my devices that they had tried to call, but I didn’t use any of my devices until 10:00 at night, when I opened my iPad which immediately informed me that a FaceTime contact had occurred.  I unfortunately touched the message on the iPad, and that immediately dialed up my friends in Belgium, which meant that their iPhone or computer started ringing.  I figured it was the middle of the night there and didn’t want to wake them up, so I immediately pushed the red button to stop the call.  I felt guilty about unintentionally making the call, but no one immediately called back so I figured they slept through it, but it did leave a fresh message on their devices that I had called.

    Last night I was sleeping soundly, when at 1:00 AM, suddenly my iPad started ringing.  I immediately awoke and groped through the mosquito net to see what was going on.  I opened the cover to the iPad (which turns it on), and was immediately blinded by its bright light.  Since I didn’t have my reading glasses on, I couldn’t really read the message, but I touched it and suddenly, I heard people speaking Flemish.  

    It was my friends from Belgium, who evidently had just discovered the FaceTime message that I had tried to contact them, and they had done the same thing I did earlier--had touched the message, thus triggering a return call.  In their confusion, they couldn’t figure out how to stop the call and as a result it kept ringing on my iPad which woke me up in the godawful middle of the night.  When I spoke they apologized profusely, then we all hung up and after an hour of listening to the clock radio I again fell back to sleep.

    Isn’t technology wonderful.

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