macOS Continuity WiFi Calling Active Call FaceTime Window Immovable

[deejerydoo]

For at least a couple of generations of macOS now, whenever making or receiving calls using macOS Continuity WiFi Calling. The active call status window in FaceTime is an immovable object on your screen (see graphic). This means, if you need to get to something in a window behind this call status (e.g. You are carrying out remote support for a client, with their remote screen set to full display) you have to come out of full display, then juggle the windows to get to the thing you needed to. This isn't a problem, in this status window, if you are making/receiving FaceTime video calls, only voice calls are affected.

There are multiple threads on the Apple support forum as well as other fora about this abhorrent behaviour and yet Apple have still failed to even officially acknowledge the issue.

The whole idea of windows, in a GUI, is that they are movable according to your needs. Apple's adoption of this exception, to what has pretty well been a fundamental design standard in GUIs, since their inception, strikes me as absolutely bizarre! Are we witnessing some kind of organisational psychosis?

PS: One for the forum mods/admins. The only reason I posted this under the "General Apple News & Discussion: category is that there isn't a category for macOS (there are categories for several older macOS versions but nothing for matters that span versions, such as this, or even the current macOS).

 

[Just_Me_D]

Sometime yesterday, I was using my MacBook Pro when I received a phone call. As always, I accepted the call via my MacBook Pro. Yet, because I can continue to do whatever I’m doing on my MacBook Pro, I really don’t pay attention to the call window and I honestly can’t recall if it stayed visible or not.

 

[deejerydoo]

I use this feature on my Mac multiple times a day every day and I notice it every time. All too often, I am on a remote support call and need to get to the top right hand corner of my client's screen, in the remote session and have to move windows around (which can be a major PitA, if you are in full screen mode) just to work around the immovable FaceTime call window. Remember, this is a voice call, not a video call, this happens in. If you don't really use this feature, then of course you're not going to be bothered by it.

 

[deejerydoo]

No feedback on the forum issue I pointed out?

 

[deejerydoo]

Just had an Apple macOS product specialist confirm that the immovable call status Window, in FaceTime is actually "by design"! How or why some bright spark in the FaceTime product team could possibly think breaking one of the fundamental design tenets of a Window based GUI, would be a good idea, beggars belief. I guess it's like the Mac startup chime. A bright spark convinces the rest of the product team it's a good idea to get rid of it for them to realise, only after a couple of years of customers berating them, that it should probably go back in.

Right way, wrong way, Apple way, the highway!