iOS 13.4 barred FaceTime calls to older devices

iOS 13.4 and macOS 10.15.4, which were released a week earlier, contain a rather unpleasant feature. It consists of a ban on making FaceTime calls between old and new devices. That is, users whose iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch are running iOS 9.3.5 and 9.3.6 cannot make calls themselves and receive calls from device owners based on current OS versions. This feature of the updates was noticed by quite a lot of people who immediately began to complain to Apple, showing the company their indignation.

Can't get through to relatives via FaceTime? Most likely, the case is in iOS 13.4

I specifically call this problem a feature, not a bug, because its nature is still incomprehensible to the end - at least for me. Still, bugs are a phenomenon from which operating systems usually suffer alone, and in this case there is an opposite trend when both iOS and macOS do not allow making FaceTime calls. This gives reason to think that the described problem is a completely legitimate restriction that Apple itself introduced. This theory is also supported by the fact that it is impossible to get through only to older versions of iOS, while there is no such problem with new ones. And if it was a real bug, then most likely it was impossible to call on any devices.

Why FaceTime is unavailable

Apparently, Apple has increased the load on servers serving FaceTime

Yesterday I upgraded my iPhone and iPad to iOS 13.4, and today I found that I can’t get through FaceTime to my mother, who uses the old iPad 3, which runs on iOS 9. Now she is self-isolating due to the risk of infection with COVID-19 , and we don’t have another way to call her via video. Please fix this system bug and give us the opportunity to call up with our relatives during this difficult time, one of Twitter users complains.

A quick analysis of the situation showed that there were a lot of those who faced a restriction on video calls. Perhaps this is generally one of the most widespread failures that has only occurred with iOS recently. Users massively complain about the impossibility of making FaceTime calls, leaving negative feedback on a variety of sites and requiring Apple to “fix the bug”. That's just something personally tells me that in reality this is not a bug at all, but a deliberate ban imposed by the company, especially since it has a reason for this.

FaceTime does not work. What's the matter

Many are sure that this is a bug, but it seems to me that Apple has deliberately limited FaceTime to older devices

It is obvious that now, when people from all over the world are in quarantine and practically do not leave their homes, for many of them, FaceTime has become the main way to communicate with relatives and friends. The video communication service provides high quality communication, and is available to a large number of users. Therefore, it is logical that such an influx of users has increased the load on Apple servers that ensure FaceTime is working, and the company decided to lighten it up a bit by prohibiting the owners of old devices from using video services.

Quite a funny moment: Apple itself, when users ask her why FaceTime does not work for them, recommends that they install the latest released version of iOS. According to representatives of the technical support service, this is the surest way to return the service to service. However, users of iOS 9 will not objectively be able to upgrade to iOS 13.4, and therefore, in their case, the company can only shrug and refer to the fact that it is not involved in fixing bugs in older versions of the OS whose support has already stopped.