Apple’s Group FaceTime won’t arrive with iOS 12 and macOS Mojave

One of the most anticipated iOS 12 and macOS Mojave features, group FaceTime, will not arrive when Apple makes both software releases available this fall.

Apple announced group FaceTime at WWDC and hyped it as a seamless way to video chat with up to 32 people simultaneously.

Right before Apple removed the iOS 12 beta 7 because of bugs, users who downloaded the software update noticed the feature had been removed with only the release notes saying it’d “ship in a future software update later this fall.”

Despite group FaceTime improving over the last several iOS 12 betas, we noticed it was particularly buggy when we tried it back in June when the first betas came out. Group calls would lag and audio would become distorted, especially when multiple users had Animoji, Memoji, and video filter effects applied to the video calls.

This isn’t the first time Apple has pulled an anticipated feature from its software mere months prior to its release. The same happened with the Messages in iCloud feature that was announced for iOS 11 in September 2017 and didn’t become available to users until late May 2018.

It’s disappointing group FaceTime won’t be available in time on launch day for iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, but it’s probably for the better that it’s delayed instead of pushed out half-baked. The last thing Apple needs is another Apple Maps repeat, where a new software feature either doesn’t work or works poorly when released.