Random FaceTime, Minus the Contacts List

Not with FaceTime itself. Apple’s FaceTime calls a phone number or Apple ID you already have, so it only reaches people in your contacts or people who gave you their details. To meet someone new face to face on an iPhone, you need a different place, and MatchPub works right inside Safari.

The idea is the feel of a FaceTime call, full screen and face to face, but with someone you haven’t met. On MatchPub you get one person at a time, picked at random, with the option to stay, follow or move on.

In Safari, go to matchpub.cam, let it use the camera and microphone, leave the mode on Video and press start. One person appears on your screen, full size. Pinning the site to your home screen afterwards is optional and saves typing the address next time. The whole setup takes about a minute.

Your phone number and your Apple ID. A FaceTime call shows the other person the number or email it came from, which is fine for friends and not something you’d hand to someone you met a minute ago. Matching on MatchPub uses neither, and it doesn’t read your contacts.

What the other person does see is your camera picture, so the usual care applies: check the background for anything that gives away where you live, and keep your name and accounts out of the conversation, as the safety page suggests.

You don’t need one. MatchPub runs in Safari, and once you add it to your home screen, the icon opens it like an app. There’s nothing to download from the App Store and no separate account to create before your first match. Guests can start straight away.

The MatchPub app page covers pinning it to the home screen on iPhone, Android and a laptop.

Very close to the real thing. The other person fills the screen, the call runs in a browser tab instead of the Phone app, and the conversation is just the two of you. The difference is that you don’t know who’s coming next, and you can move on by tapping Next.

A browser tab can look just as good as the built-in app if the lighting is right. For the conversation itself, the one-on-one video chat guide breaks down the first sixty seconds.

The usual FaceTime set-up habits, a steady phone and light from the front, apply here too; the 1 on 1 cam check has the full list.

Wi-Fi helps as well. A video match on a weak mobile signal freezes in the same places a FaceTime call would, usually right when someone is halfway through a story. If you’re on the move, starting on Audio and switching to Video for a later match is often smoother.

The habit that doesn’t carry over is calling someone back. On FaceTime you’d ring the number again; here there’s no number to ring. That’s what follow is for, and it’s explained in the next section.

When a conversation goes well, the FaceTime habit is to swap numbers. Here you don’t have to. Follow the person before you tap Next, and they stay in your follow list. Later you can message them from their profile, or call them from there with your camera on.

Your number stays yours, theirs stays theirs, and either of you can stop replying without anything awkward lingering on your phone. The full path from match to message list is laid out on the page about how MatchPub works. If the two of you later decide to swap details, that’s your choice; MatchPub just means you don’t have to on day one.

Everything works the same in Chrome on Android and in any modern browser on a laptop or desktop. On a computer, a bookmark does the job. The rest of what MatchPub does is on the MatchPub home page.

Plenty of people use more than one device: an iPhone in bed, a laptop at the desk. A video match works the same on both, and if you came in as a guest, sticking to the same browser on each device keeps your session and messages where you left them. Switching mid-week is fine; just expect each new browser to start fresh.