iMessage audio message quality.

[greenorblue]

I don't know about you guys, but something that's been driving me absolutely insane since its release is the ability to send audio messages in iMessage. Don't get me wrong, I think the concept is amazing, but the execution and lack of customization is SO POOR.

Hear me out. The audio quality for the audio messages are absolutely terrible. Complete garbage. I understand the mentality behind sending a small packet of low quality audio over iMessage. It uses less data and will send faster. But a compromise for this would be giving users the ability to select they quality they want to send (i.e. low, medium, high) depending on personal preference/data plans/usage.

Test something if you haven't already. Record something in the Voice Memos app and send it to yourself via iMessage (or a friend) with the share button. Then, send something to yourself (or a friend) using the audio message feature in iMessage and compare the quality. The difference is similar to hearing the jump in quality from a regular phone call to FaceTime audio. I believe this to be a pretty big oversight on the part of Apple, and I'm super disappointed that iOS9 shows no sign of this changing. Any thoughts? Is it just me? HELLO.

 

[Armen]

I don't know about you guys, but something that's been driving me absolutely insane since its release is the ability to send audio messages in iMessage. Don't get me wrong, I think the concept is amazing, but the execution and lack of customization is SO POOR.

Hear me out. The audio quality for the audio messages are absolutely terrible. Complete garbage. I understand the mentality behind sending a small packet of low quality audio over iMessage. It uses less data and will send faster. But a compromise for this would be giving users the ability to select they quality they want to send (i.e. low, medium, high) depending on personal preference/data plans/usage.

Test something if you haven't already. Record something in the Voice Memos app and send it to yourself via iMessage (or a friend) with the share button. Then, send something to yourself (or a friend) using the audio message feature in iMessage and compare the quality. The difference is similar to hearing the jump in quality from a regular phone call to FaceTime audio. I believe this to be a pretty big oversight on the part of Apple, and I'm super disappointed that iOS9 shows no sign of this changing. Any thoughts? Is it just me? HELLO.

I only know of one other guy on the forums that was complaining about this.

I can't think of a practical use case for this feature. If you can send an audio message and the other person can listen to it why not just call them? I remember Apple was talking about walkie-talkie chirp type audio message during WWDC but that feature seems to have vanished. that would have been more useful. faster than a phone call, faster than an audio message.

 

[greenorblue]

I only know of one other guy on the forums that was complaining about this.

I can't think of a practical use case for this feature. If you can send an audio message and the other person can listen to it why not just call them? I remember Apple was talking about walkie-talkie chirp type audio message during WWDC but that feature seems to have vanished. that would have been more useful. faster than a phone call, faster than an audio message.

The "chirp" feature would be quite intrusive if you're busy. My group of friends and I use the audio message feature all the time. The way I see it is: it lies in-between a text and a phone call. When you need to convey something long/something that won't translate well over text, but isn't worth initiating a phone call for. It's also great when you're driving. If people gave it an actual go I think they'd find the feature very useful. But then again, maybe the reason a majority of users disregard the feature is because the quality is so low that it's difficult to understand the other party. Either way, there are users who find benefit in something Apple developed into their software, and I for one would like to see it expanded upon.