[StephenMelon]

I think the new Facetime features are gamechangers in terms of driving usage. All this stuff was already available in Snapchat etc. but Snap's problem is that the impressive AR stuff they were doing 3 years ago is now built into the OS.

Allowing people to call each other as avatars complete with facial expressions or with flattering filters applied gets rid of one of the last remaining key barriers to mass video calling adoption: people tend to look like hell in low light on front-facing cameras. Teenagers will upgrade to Face ID just to get these features, grandkids will love calling their grandparents as cartoon tigers and grandparents will love responding as cartoon dinosaurs.

Also nice to see the fruits of the Workflow acquisition, this will allow people to do all sorts of customisations including using slang and profanity to trigger commands. "Hey Siri, order my favourite fucking pizza".