Facetime camera reverses left and right

This is the same is iChat and indeed Skype. The image of your own camera is left-right reversed so that you see the version of your face you are used to seeing in a mirror: however it's correct at the far end. For those of us with lop-sided faces it's a bit disconcerting to see a non-mirrored image.

Gary P wrote:
What is the point of this? Seems stupid.

The point is that it's showing you what you "expect" and by that I mean it shows you how you are used to seeing yourself: In a mirror. The fact is that if you don't reverse the self-monitor image, people freak out because not only are they seeing themselves in an unfamiliar way (reversed from what they see in the mirror), but the movements "appear" backwards: When the self-monitor image is not reversed, when you move left, the image of you on screen moves right! Mirror-imaging the self-monitor display solves all these weird psychological issues.

But...what I don't know is what is actually seen on the other end. Maybe the image on the other end is proper and unreversed. I would hope so, because friends normally encounter you as the camera would, unreversed. You'll have to test it with a friend and find out.

The display on your screen is supposed to look like the familiar view you get with all those other low-tech devices that show you your own face: mirrors.