Why FaceTime is not working in UAE

Hi all ,

recently I have bought an Iphone 6 in UAE , from thier apple store web page with free delivery. I was not aware about this facetime issue , however I have activiated it using my apple store ID from Poland while still in UAE but with a Polish sim card that does not have any restrictions in the country of origin.

I am back in poland now , and the facetime option is not available at all in the device , however the imessage is under "settings/messages"

and i was able to use it for a couple of messages . after 2 hours I wanted to imessage again and got a message "facetime and Imessage --> your carrier may charge for SMS messages used to activate Facetime and IMessage"

so after reboot the issue persists , the imessage icon is enabled however the comment beneath it states " activating ......" and pops with th e error message mentioned above.

so in my opinion if it is a hardware issue then the imessage would not have worked from the first place , however it is there but not working anymore ...nevertheless it did for 3 hours. it makes me wonder if in my case If I restore it in Poland perhaps it will work.

I will give it a try and let you know guys.

Sodaboy1978 wrote:

Need to be connected to wi-fi and have internet connection. If your signed in it may be possible that the firewall in the router is blocking the port.

Sodaboy,

Take a look at the other posts pointing out that FaceTime is not included on iOS devices sold in the UAE because the government prohibits its use.

Ralph9430 wrote:

Sodaboy1978 wrote:

Need to be connected to wi-fi and have internet connection. If your signed in it may be possible that the firewall in the router is blocking the port.

Sodaboy,

Take a look at the other posts pointing out that FaceTime is not included on iOS devices sold in the UAE because the government prohibits its use.

Check your dates, Ralph.......😉

On the last day of our trip to Dubai last week, my cousin and I decided to treet ourselves with an iPad Pro and bought two 128GB wi-fe models from the Apple Store in the Emirates Mall (already knowing that they came with no Facetime). After returning home to Turkey the next day we found out that there was a problem with my cousins device so we immediately took it to one of the local Apple Stores in Istanbul to have it checked (there was a little bump at the side edge of the steel case which you could only feel when moving your finger over it). Anyhow, after the checking was completed the Genius guy accepted that it was a defect and had the device replaced for a new one (with Facetime). Even though the same Genius guy said that the Facetime app will automatically be erased from the device in a few days, it's been almost a week and my cousin is still happly using his Facetime app 🙂 HOW IS THAT FOR LUCK!!!

My experience with an iPhone 7 bought from Dubai: I unsealed and activated it with a sim in Romania, and there was no FaceTime. After researching online, I tried different sim cards. With some (Kuwait and Jordan), the FT icon appears on the home screen and I can use it to make video calls. With European sim cards (Romania, UK, Germany), the FT icon disappears the moment I put the sim in.

If the model # has AE or AB or possibly AH in front of the slash, FaceTime will not be available in KSA, UAE, or countries outside of the Middle East. SIM cards from certain (not all) Middle Eastern wireless providers will enable FaceTime, but only for those cellular carriers and in the appropriate countries. FaceTime cannot be added if iPhone/iPad is no longer in the restricted area.

it's really strange, i have an iPhone 7 bought from USA with working Facetime, but recently bought a MacBook also from USA with build in Facetime but i wasn't able to activate it on my MacBook show this message "an error occurred during activation. please try again".

already i used VPN and tried to activate it but same still not working eveb i change the DNS without any result.

Reports in this and other fora are that various Middle Eastern governments

are actively blocking the connections used by VPN programs and have

enlisted the wireless providers and ISPs in these countries to assist in blocking

such workarounds.

Several have complained that what used to work no longer does. The situation

is controlled by the sovereign nations/governments; this is not a problem

caused by Apple nor can the matter be resolved by Apple.

Since the iPhones in UAE are somewhat changed so that facetime cannot be used, when you travel to USA persay, can the facetime app be downloaded onto this phone and THEN used in the USA as per normal iphone use? Appart from video chats not allowed in UAE can the this Facetime option be used elsewhere in another countyr knowing that the phone was purchased in UAE?

Yes i agree with Kyounis. i bought my iphone 6 from UAE, ABU DHABI and when i inserted my Pakistan Sim facetime started working. yes u need to go in settings and need to look for facetime. Kyounis i am great full to you cus i was not aware of ** network i always though that facetime in UAE doesn't work there, but now i will try on ** network.

u don't have to download facetime as its already builtin in it. when you are going to insert USA Sim u just have to go in settings and u will find it there. this is all fake news that u need to download Facetime in it.

But my problem is with MacBook, my iPhone FaceTime is working fine without any problems, I can't activate my MacBook FaceTime, I activated my iPhone on USA SIM card and it's working fine, just I need to activate the FaceTime in my new MacBook

Sorry you can't use facetime in the UAE, it has been restricted by the government.

There is nothing you can do to install it.

No

Facetime is banned by the UAE government.

As stated by Allan and I, it can't be used or installed.