Have a prerecorded response play back to caller automatically.

[Ben J.]

I guess this is just silly, and not a feature of iOS, but…

I thought it would be nice to have, when I get a call, and it's "forwarded" to my mac and I click 'answer', that the caller would hear my recording saying "Hi, this is Ben. Hold on a second or two, I need to find my Airpods".

 

[Ben J.]

I might have a possible solution.
Remember, I'm sitting in my living room using a big TV for browsing and entertainment. The phone rings, and I also get a notification on the mac that I can click 'answer' on. The iphone is out of my reach.

I see that the iphone can have a custom recorded 'answering machine':

Set up your voicemail on iPhone

On iPhone, Visual Voicemail shows a list of your messages. You can choose which ones to play and delete without listening to all of them.

support.apple.com

If I establish this automatic response with a recording with many seconds of silence following, this would let me put on my airpods and let them connect to the mac. Now, ideally I would click 'answer' on the mac and start the conversation. And because of the silent seconds, the 'leave message' has not yet started, so we can talk.

I think it looks good on paper.
I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Ben J.]

Well, it wouldn't work the way I planned. I was counting on being able to hit 'answer' button while the caller was still listening to the answering machine message. Unfortunately, you lose that ability as soon as the answering machine message starts playing. Well, well. Worth a try.

 

[Ben J.]

I wanted to, for now, just turn the answering machine off, so that as long as the caller's patience allows me I have the time to get my Airpods or headset, but I can't see 'off' as an option on the iphone. Anyone?

 

[Ben J.]

I found that there are "codes" that you can type in your mobile that your mobile service provider automatically recieves and that you can use to change settings. I did this with ##004#, and got the message back that my settings had been changed. Now, my iphone just rings and rings, and depending on the caller's patience, I will hopefully have enough time to put on and connect my airpods before I answer the call. No viocemail/answeringmachine.

How to Turn Off Voicemail on an iPhone: 4 Easy Options

Manage your voicemails easily with these simple stepsThis wikiHow teaches you how to disable voicemail on your iPhone. In most cases, the only way to disable your voicemail is to contact your mobile provider—this is because voicemail is...

www.wikihow.com

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Codes are carrier-specific so may not work with every carrier.