Users report FaceTime glitch causes random photos to appear in calls

A recent topic up at Apple Discussion Forums has a few users report an unusual glitch with the FaceTime app on their iPhones.

Users are reporting that when using FaceTime, the screen shows up a random picture frozen on the screens. User kar0786, who first reported the glitch, says:

My boyfriend and I have both recently experienced this problem several times – when one of us is calling the other via FaceTime, an old picture freezes on our screen, while the person receiving the call only sees a black screen. It’s kind of creepy, because it brought up photos of both of us at work, where I have used FaceTime a few times but he never has.

Since then, a few more users have chimed in saying that they too have experiences this unusual behavior when using FaceTime. User nasetron chimed in saying that restoring the iPhone and setting it up as a new device does not help, as he continues to experience the issue after that. In fact, he even had the phone swapped in for a new one, but the glitch persists.

FaceTime glitches have been reported in the past as well, when a server glitch caused Apple devices to randomly initiate FaceTime calls. I, for one, have never used FaceTime after the initial novelty wore off, but I tried to see if I could come across this glitch myself. However, nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the 3 test FaceTime calls I made. I spoke to a friend who frequently, almost daily, makes FaceTime calls between India and Poland through his iPhone 4, but he hasn’t come across anything odd either.

Privacy concerns are being raised due to this glitch, with some users fearing that the iPhone randomly takes photos when not in use. One explanation for this glitch could be iOS’s “trick” of saving the state in which an app is suspended and resuming from where it was last left off. iOS stores this screenshot in the phone’s memory and not on the Camera Roll, which is what is being reported in the discussion thread above.