Voicemail posts

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, First Look, App Review

First Look: Voices for iPhone

by John Burke (RSS feed) on Nov 19th, 2009

Novelty and social applications are a big hit on the iPhone. A new one from the folks of Taptivate is sure to be a big hit when it is released in the near future. Voices for iPhone is touted as an "audio recorder with a twist" and even a "social voicemail" utility.

With Voices [iTunes Link], you're given tools to manipulate your own voice in many fun and odd ways. Whether you'd like to transform into Darth Vader or a chipmunk, you're good to go with Voices. Sporting a unique and very pretty user interface, the application boasts a lot of cool extras sure to show you how hard the developers have worked on it.

The app has a home screen-like selection window where you can choose the way in which you want your voice manipulated. A stack of your recordings can also be accessed with just a tap.

After initially seeing this app when it was in early beta, it has come a long way since then. The app is being published by Tap Tap Tap and is available for only 99 cents. Also, to celebrate the release, MacHeist is offering a special "Tweetblast" deal, giving away a free copy of Voice Candy for Mac to people who help spread the word on Twitter.

Here's some shots of Voices in action:

Gallery: Voices for iPhone

Share with your favorite social media sites

Tags: app review, AppReview, false, iphone, Novelty, recording, social, Taptivate, voice, voice modulator, voicemail, VoiceModulator, Voices

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, iPhone

David Pogue and his 'Take Back the Beep' campaign

by Mel Martin (RSS feed) on Jul 31st, 2009

David Pogue, who writes on tech for the New York Times had an interesting and thoughtful column yesterday. He's been complaining about the ridiculously long messages the cellular carriers stick on to the end of your voicemail message. He's right, too. But what I hadn't realized was that these incessant and long messages add to your air time and are bringing in millions of dollars of extra, and unearned revenue to the cellphone providers.

Here's a sample from the column of how, instead of a simple beep, the phone companies game the system to add to your minutes:

* Sprint: "[Phone number] is not available right now. Please leave a detailed message after the tone. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press pound for more options."

* Verizon: "At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. To leave a callback number, press 5. (Beep)"

* AT&T: "To page this person, press five now. At the tone, please record your message. When you are finished, you may hang up, or press one for more options."

* T-Mobile: "Record your message after the tone. To send a numeric page, press five. When you are finished recording, hang up, or for delivery options, press pound."

It would be nice to be able to turn this stuff off, but it really isn't possible. There is one nice surprise in all this bad news. When Apple made the deal with AT&T, Apple insisted these messages not be on iPhone voice mail. When you call me you get MY message, and a beep. Just like that. No "dial 2 for the temperature in Des Moines" or "touch the pound key three times quickly, pause and one more click to get customer service if you are north of latitude 40 degrees." This is an example of something Apple and AT&T did that actually benefited iPhone owners, especially given all the latest circus with Skype, SlingPlayer, and Google.

Pogue has this exactly right. Cellphone users should complain to high heaven about these rather egregious violations of common sense and just plain smart customer relations. iPhone owners got off easy with voice mail. But we're bearing a heavy load as Apple and AT&T try to outdo each other in alienating their customers.

There oughta be a law.

Tags: ATT, cellular carriers, complaints, price gouging, voicemail

Filed under: iPhone, App Store

SMS texting and voicemail support come with latest Skype update

by Sang Tang (RSS feed) on Jun 30th, 2009

Skype (iTunes link) has been updated to 1.1, which brings it some new features making it more closely resemble its desktop sibling. So, what's new? Well, there's now support for Skype voicemail (subscription needed) and SMS text messaging.

However, SMS texting is not bidirectional. Which means that you can send SMS texts, but not receive them. And while a dialog box states that sent SMS texts will show up as sent from the sender's Skype screen name, in my case it displayed the "999-99" caller ID that typically accompanies calls from a Skype-based client. Perhaps that's because I don't have a SkypeIn number?

The 1.1 update also provides additional language support as well as more help when dialing phones.

Tags: iphone, skype, sms, update, voicemail

Filed under: iPhone, App Store

A different kind of Voicemail

by Mel Martin (RSS feed) on Mar 11th, 2009

A new app for the iPhone has made its way to the App Store. VoiceMail, $0.99, lets you record a message and send it to a friend on a PC or Mac, or even on an iPhone.

I tried the app several times and found it a frustrating experience. First, you click on 'send mail' and the app brings up a list of your contacts. You are still within the VoiceMail app, and if you have a long contact list, all you can do is scroll up or down. No shortcuts. You select the contact, and are instructed to add a short line of text. I entered 16 words, and got an error telling me the limit is 25 words. Grrrrrrr. I shortened my message, then proceeded to record a voice message. After hitting the' send' button I waited for it to go out. Then I waited some more. I noticed my network signal was dipping below 2 bars, so decided to quit. Unfortunately, there was no option to cancel. I forced quit the application and went back in. No sign of that message, so I had to start from scratch.

By this time, I was in a better signal area (4 bars, solid 3G) so I sent another message. This one succeeded, but it took 24 seconds to send a 4 second message. I don't think this app is designed for long, detailed voicemails. Maybe on Wi-Fi.

For further testing, I sent myself a message. It arrived in my mailbox, and it said if I wasn't on an iPhone to click on a URL to retrieve it. Well, I WAS on an iPhone, and saw no indication that there was an attachment to click on or listen to. There is an in box on the app, so I checked there, and hit the refresh button. No message there either. In desperation, I clicked on the URL and got a web page with no way to listen to a message. Grrrrr.

Continue reading “A different kind of Voicemail”

Tags: app store, iphone, voicemail

Filed under: iPhone

iPhone 2.0 supports playback of WAV voicemail

by Michael Rose (RSS feed) on Jul 16th, 2008

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.

Tags: att, iphone, playback, voicemail, wav

Filed under: Hacks, How-tos, iPhone

Trick your iPhone voicemail into using voice recording data

by Erica Sadun (RSS feed) on Aug 9th, 2007

The other day, I discussed how to record audio on your iPhone. Several people wrote in asking whether they could have their recordings show up in voicemail, so I scouted around a bit. I discovered that voicemail is stored in ~/Library/Voicemail and that it uses an sqlite3-compatible database to manage that information.

Last night, I put together a shell script that allows you to trick the iPhone into thinking that amr files added to the voicemail folder are actual voicemails. To make this happen, I ported sqlite3 to the iPhone (You can download a copy here). I also wrote a csh script, which you can download here and a time utility, here. The reason I wrote the script in csh rather than bash (both of which appear in the standard binary distribution kit) is just that I'm more familiar with csh.

To run the script, supply it with the amr file as its one argument, e.g. copy2vmail foo.amr. The script copies the amr file to the voicemail folder and updates the voicemail database as if the voicemail were received at the current time.

To force voicemail to update and re-read the database, enter the phone application and quit it by holding down the home button for 4-8 seconds. Re-enter the phone application and, with luck, you will see the recording as new voice message from "VoiceRecorder".

Thanks, Spaced.

Tags: copy2vmail, CShell, ctime, Scripting, SQLite3, Voicemail

Filed under: Internet Tools, Leopard

iChat 4.0 Voicemail

by Dan Lurie (RSS feed) on Feb 15th, 2007

A trusted source has provided TUAW with a screen-capture of an iChat 4.0 preference pane which hints at an as-yet-unannounced new feature– voicemail. Such a feature would round out the programs VoIP offerings and create a more complete communication experience for users.

Now if only iChat could integrate with Skype and SIP, I wouldn't need a phone at all!

Update: Can it be exclusive if Mac Rumors covered it in Dec? Ah well, here's hope we both don't get matching nastygrams from Apple legal (hey, we love your work!).

Tags: ichat, leopard, voicemail

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