Will Visual Voicemail Kill All Voicemail?

4 comments

Something to ponder: on my phone are 36 unlistened-to voicemail messages. There have been 36 for a couple of weeks now because the 36 have filled the voicemail box somewhere on the AT&T’s voicemail servers. Of course, the phone’s Visual Voicemail could let me select any of the messages and listen to each of them individually - but I dread the idea of doing so: I don’t really want to listen to any of them and I don’t think I’m alone.

You see, I wonder if the visual interface of the Apple iPhone will make voicemail redundant - at a glance I can see who the last folks who have called are and I can see who has left a message. And unless I don’t know what the number is, I can guess what they were calling about and what the message says. In a world where we seem to find bite-size messages in SMS or Twitter form acceptable, why would I spend considerable time listening to an audio message?

If you don’t have visual mail then I pity you - you have to take time out to listen to your voicemail messages one by one. Every one a surprise. Not exactly a modern way to access information. Voicemail feels like it was a technology that was created to fill a gap - until something better came along. And now it has: Sure, ring me but there’s no need to leave a message - I’ll know you called and if you want to tell me something then the emerging modern etiquette evolving is you should just text or email me - not leave a voice message.

Either that or I’m just an anti-social miserable sod.

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Comments (4)

  1. total tangent, but what about audio email?

    I don’t want to type my email with a touchscreen or a miniture qwerty kepad!!!

    I want to give dictation. who cares if there are voice recognition typos - my email messages are already full of them.

    Can someone figure that out for me?

  2. seems an odd rant when you can simply check out “calls received” and know who it was? am i missing something here?

  3. excellent.. and is anything more annoying than the vocal operator guiding you through the voicemail menus?

  4. You’re anti-social? Hell, I don’t have a cell phone because I hate to be interrupted when I’m working. If I want to hear from someone, I call them. I don’t need phones ringing when I’m trying to think or get work done. Email, I can deal with because I can read it when I have a break but cell phones are a plague of the 21st century. Talk about noise pollution. They’ve invaded every public space. A pox on them!

    Bit off track from your voicemail comments but once you start on a rant, it’s hard to stop.