New FaceTime feature forces you to make eye contact

FaceTime and other forms of video calling are already inherently weird, but Apple seems committed to making it as uncomfortable as possible.

Apple is running an iOS 13 beta ahead of the big update’s launch later this year and one new feature made waves on Twitter on Tuesday. “FaceTime Attention Correction” promises to make your eye contact “more accurate” during video calls, according to the menu setting spotted by app designer Mike Rundle.

What exactly does that mean? Well, if you turn that feature on, FaceTime will make it look like you’re making eye contact with the other person on the call even when you’re not. If you like terrifying things that arguably shouldn’t exist, here’s a visual example of the feature in action.

The idea behind this FaceTime correction feature makes sense. If you don’t use FaceTime or other video call services regularly and aren’t used to them, it can be easy to forget to look at the camera. That means you won’t make eye contact with the other person on the call, which feels a little weird in the moment.

That said, fake eye contact correction might not be the way to go. It’s pretty creepy as a concept and humans don’t maintain constant eye contact with one another in normal conversations anyway. It’s perfectly fine to look away for a second.

This is only in the iOS 13 developer beta at the moment, not the version the public can download. When iOS 13 launches later this year, it’ll bring a host of big new changes to Apple’s mobile platform, including device-wide dark mode, massively overhauled Apple Maps, and improved privacy settings.