Visual Voicemail

[suneohair]

I was just thinking, and that name is very suspect.

It makes sense... but why not On-demand voicemail or something? I ask because I think the name leaves it open to video voicemail in the future. I imagine cingular/att have it patented, I wonder if the patent includes video voicemail...

Thoughts.

 

[Ars Diaboli]

Other features of visual voicemail?

You know, come to think of it, I didn't see Steve dial into a network to get the voicemail. He just touched it and it came up. This is something new (if I got it right, you may not have been able to see him dial into the system). Just imagine, instead of having to dial into a central answering machine, the iphone itself 'downloads' the email for you. You press the button and you get the message. If this is so, this would be cool!

 

[Ars Diaboli]

Checked the apple site

So, I went and looked at the Apple site, checking out the voicemail movie they had on the web. It looks like you DON'T have to 'Dial in' to get your voicemail. It seems that the voicemail is pushed to your phone. But..... the video picks up right when an email begins and doesn't show what goes on before it, so this could be misleading.

What does everyone think?

 

[buymeaniphone]

I think it would be possible for the iPhone to automatically download the voice mail for you without you having to dial the mail box.

My question to everyone is this, do you really receive a lot of voice mails? I dont really use my phone for serious business use so I dont get much voice mail and I dont think I'd even really need to utilize this feature that much.

Just wondering if people are so excited that its possible to do this that they haven't really thought about the practicality of it. Or maybe I'm just not that popular

 

[Lixivial]

Watching the iPhone video makes it seem as though the voicemail is pushed to the phone. Oddly enough, I could have sworn I read about it in the post-Macworld hubbub, or heard it in the keynote, but I can't find it. Thinking about it, it's the only logical way it could work.

Watching the video, you'll notice that when the new voicemail is played, the activity throbber activates to indicate network activity, but it doesn't activate on the voicemail that has already been listened to.

Just wondering if people are so excited that its possible to do this that they haven't really thought about the practicality of it.

Well, it's actually a practical and useful advance for voicemail. The whole "use the keypad for navigation, and mentally remember what position in the list you are in" is a tired way of doing things. I was always happy to see that there is also a visual way of scrubbing through the audio, too, because the law of voicemail states: It will be a long, slowly drawn out message, with a really, really quickly stated phone number at the end.

 

[Cult Follower]

I hope video voicemail is coming

 

[Shanesan]

Steve showed it VERY simply in his keynote, and it appears to be pretty easy.

Cingular Voicemail Central sends out a command that "Hey, there's new voicemail for (phone#) from (phone#)" and the iPhone recieves it. It changes the from phone# to the persons name and puts it in the list.

When you go to voicemail, you see a little dot meaning its a new voicemail from John Smith. You touch it, and it sends back "Hey, play voicemail #123456 from my inbox" and it does. Then, it saves it on the harddrive so it doesn't need to access it again and you can delete it at your will.

 

[Ars Diaboli]

So, Shanesan, it does in effect 'phone home' to retrieve the voice mail. That would mean it is not a true 'push' voicemail. Dern it! I was kind of hoping that it would be a true 'push' voicemail. It shows up on the iphone and you just tap the screen and listen, instead of connecting back to the voicemail center.

Just think, it could have been 'zap- and the message is there' and you could access it without even having any signal to the voicemail node. You could check the voicemail anytime, at your leisure, signal or no signal because it was already on your phone!

I wonder if the iphone will be able to check for voicemail by using a wifi connection when you are outside of a Cingular/ATT cloud?

 

[Ars Diaboli]

video voicemail

This, too, would be very cool. You dial with the iphone and then turn the phone around and record your message.

One drawback is that Cingular is going with a 2.5G system. This probably isn't as robust as it needs to be. It would probably be jerky video. However, if it was pushed to the iphone behind the scenes, you would never know it.

 

[suneohair]

Hmmm. I knew the voicemail was pushed to the phone. My thought was that maybe the name leaves it open for video voicemail.

 

[Shanesan]

So, Shanesan, it does in effect 'phone home' to retrieve the voice mail. That would mean it is not a true 'push' voicemail. Dern it! I was kind of hoping that it would be a true 'push' voicemail. It shows up on the iphone and you just tap the screen and listen, instead of connecting back to the voicemail center.

Just think, it could have been 'zap- and the message is there' and you could access it without even having any signal to the voicemail node. You could check the voicemail anytime, at your leisure, signal or no signal because it was already on your phone!

I wonder if the iphone will be able to check for voicemail by using a wifi connection when you are outside of a Cingular/ATT cloud?

Interesting. Reviewing the presentation again, the "push" style seems to not only be easier on the network (less back and fourth conversing), but more convenient. Unfortunately, I'm not an inside goon so I can only fork over what I see (and a little bit I can possibly see through) and it appears to either work the way you percieved it (which is a more efficient and effective way) over the above idea.

Knowing apples track record for thinking things through, I wouldn't be suprised if they went the say you are describing.

 

[slffl]

If any of you have used Cisco VoiP phones and Exchange, then this is probably how Visual Voicemail works. The voicemails are probably being pushed to the iPhone in a data format. Just like getting a new email with an attachment.