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iPhone 2.0 supports playback of WAV voicemail

by Michael Rose Jul 16th 2008 at 2:00PM

If you've been aggravated at your iPhone or iPod touch in the past for its inability to play back WAV voicemail files from home phone services like Vonage or AT&T (synergy foul! yellow card), you may now breathe easier. TJ Luoma was 95% through building a rather elaborate script to convert incoming WAV voicemails to MP3 for iPhone playback (and, while he was at it, add some reverse lookup magic) when he discovered that the 2.0 firmware now includes the ability to play back the particular flavor of WAV file used in these voicemails. Problem solved.

It may not be a headline feature (or even a stealthy but universally acclaimed UI addition) but for those of us who need it, it's going to save a lot of time and trouble.

Thanks to TJ & to Curt for independently sending this one in.

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If you've been aggravated at your iPhone or iPod touch in the past for its inability to play back WAV voicemail files from home phone...
 

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Kevad

GrandCentral Mobile will display on the iPhone in Safari and does not require Flash like the main site, but pressing the link button, just like in e-mails or clicking the e-mailed URL link takes you to a specific addrss which trys to download a .mp3 file. On the iPhone 3G it opens the Movie player and then says like mentioned above that the file type is not supported and won't play. This is odd because I have send Google Talk voice notes to the iPhone 3G via e-mail and the .mp3 attachement files do play within the e-mail App. Also, can confirm that Call Wave .wav file attachments now play fine within the e-mail program on the iPhone 3G. Either Apple has to let .mp3 downloads play in a player, or associate them with a different player app like the one in e-mails, or Google is going to have to add the ability to let us select having voice messages sent at .wav or .mp3 file attachments in the e-mail notifications. Something needs to be done by either Google or Apple, cause right now I am holding off getting an iPhone 3G and will just keep using my Blackjack, which works in all ways with GrandCentral.

August 11 2008 at 8:16 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bayoyong

This seemed to not work when I first got my iPhone 3g. Then a few days ago, it did. This is huge for us as we have Vonage and they send us an email (with .wav attached) of vm's left. Saves me a call! Love it.

July 17 2008 at 3:21 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Daniel Burns

I can play my company's .WAV VM attachments in email on my 1.1.4 phone. What is the trouble some people are having?

July 16 2008 at 5:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Daniel Burns's comment
joey

The problem people are having that you and Mac OSX guy don't understand is Packet 8 voicemail is delivered as a .AU file and NOT a wav file. Wav files are common with AT&T and Vonage and some other VOIPS. Thats why Packet 8 customers "seem to be having all this trouble" or "Don't understand why they just don't download Iphone 2.0, and that will fix the problem". Quicktime on iphone does not support .au files. Quicktime on Mac's does support .au files. So it is frustrating that Steve Jobs does not update the freakin Quicktime on iphone to handle the antiquated .au files that packet 8 sends as the attachment to its emails.

Not trying to be sarcastic, just trying to explain packet 8 is a .au file (which is lame) and Vonage are wav files (which work on iphone)

September 27 2008 at 8:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris Lundie

Indeed my iPod touch can now play voicemails (WAV files from an Asterisk server) it couldn't play before. Also Safari can play embedded YouTube videos now - I don't remember that working before - but could have just missed it.

July 16 2008 at 4:30 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Scott

Does anyone have any advice for playing .au files on an iPhone? My company uses Packet8 VoIP and they send out voicemails in that format. They play fine in Quicktime on my Mac, but the iPhone can't handle them.

July 16 2008 at 3:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
5 replies to Scott's comment
Chase Rief

Still not working for Grand Central voice-mails!

July 16 2008 at 3:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Chase Rief's comment
christapher

crap, that was my first thought too. ive been giving out my grandcentral number while im in this limbo between at&t, t.mobile, and my new at&t/iphone number. i was hoping that i could continue to do that even after i get my iphone, but i suppose not. Does anyone know if you can turn off the grandcentral voicemail and have it be left in your normal inbox?

July 16 2008 at 5:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dave Aiello

@Chase:

If you view the source on a Grand Central voicemail forwarded to you as email, you'll see that the player they use is Flash-based. This is why it doesn't work on the iPhone.

Dave Aiello
OperationGadget.com

July 16 2008 at 10:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
cydeweyz

Great. Now maybe he can get to work on fixing GrandCentral's iPhone voicemail problem.

July 16 2008 at 2:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
John Mortnesen

I ran across this the other day. For me, this is one of the biggest features.

July 16 2008 at 2:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dave

Wow, great! Thanks for pointing this out.

I cancelled my Verizon landline ($30/mo) a few months ago and replaced it with the MagicJack device and service which is only $20 per year. They use email to send you any voicemails as wav files, but my plan to listen to them on my iPhone failed. Just checked, though, and it works now. Fantastic!

July 16 2008 at 2:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
R. Cabell

I've noticed that I can play my Vonage voicemail for awhile now (several months). I just tap the icon and it opens like a movie file. Works great...

July 16 2008 at 2:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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