Apple Announces FaceTime for the Mac

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It was almost an afterthought in a press event filled packed with new devices and features, but today Apple announced that FaceTime video call technology is now available for the Mac.

The announcement means that FaceTime is available for every Apple device that has a camera built-in. Mac users will be able to make video calls not only to other Macs, but also to iPhone 4 and iPod Touch users.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs pointed out in his presentation that so far the company had sold 19 million mobile devices with FaceTime in the first 4 months of the video calling service's existence.

"We're going to add tens of millions of Mac owners to that," he said.

Jobs said that FaceTime capabilities with Mac owners was the number one most requested feature among FaceTime users. He also gave a quick demonstration by calling Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller with FaceTime on a Mac.

The demo was short but showed how the technology could recognize whether an iPhone user on the other end was holding the phone in landscape or portrait orientation and adjust the window on the Mac screen accordingly.

FaceTime for Mac is available for download today but it is only a beta version. That means it's not the final product and may still have a few problems not found in mobile-to-mobile FaceTime use.