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Visual voicemail — allowing you to see, organise and listen to your voicemails without dialling up some bitchy voicemail woman — is a common feature in North America. It’s a nice feature, to be sure, and EE’s introducing it to lucky 4G customers — but does anyone still actually use voicemail?
I don’t know about you, but a quick poll of Giz HQ shows that none of us touch voicemail with a virtual bargepole if we can help it. It’s a relic of a byegone era, before texts or emails really existed, and people called each other with landlines. Eww.
What about you, though? Are you the sort of person who loves filling up voicemail recorders will hours of drivel, or the more considerate type who never spams his friends with unintelligible static-laden crap? Let us know below!
Oh, and if EE’s visual voicemail does interest you: you have to be a 4G customer on EE (or Orange or T-Mobile); just text “visual voicemail” to 150. [TechRadar]
Image credit: No signal from Shutterstock
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No, and I hope voicemail dies entirely. It’s a hateful thing. But then, if you have to have voicemail, Visual Voicemail is the best I’ve ever used.
Voicemail is useless. Why not send the person a text? There are two things that get me upset, lack of tacos and when someone leaves me a voicemail.
what if someone leaves you a voicemail about the lack of tacos
That would be the end of such person
I’m on to you, Mitch Connor!
Or am I?
*dun dun dun*
I disagree Gibsy, Voicemail is essential. On my personal phone I use it as a call screener if someone whos number is not in my phone rungs I do not answer and if they dont leave a voicemail they dont get a call back.
Also working within IT support I tend to have to call people back and it annoys me if I cannot leave a message especially when they have used the cancel call button. There are at least 3 of the project team who do not have voicemail activated and I hate trying to get hold of them and if they are in a meeting they tend to cancel the call rather than just muting the phone.
Finaly it has been drilled into me if you send a text or an email it cannot be important so then can be responded to within 7+ days but a call is important so must be responded to in good time.
Pretty absurd question. Everyone I know including myself still uses voicemail. Maybe in a tech oriented office it might be old hat, but I’d be surprised if people didn’t rely on voicemail to pick up calls from people they don’t know, let alone parents, family etc… It’s not obsolete yet!
You are just trying to avoid the person
Ha, that all depends of course!
Bit slow Giz… I sent the magic text on Friday so have got it already :p
I’m using HulloMail for my voicemail, mainly because of the missed call notifications and copying the audio to e-mail – my office number is forwarded to my mobile, and there are many areas at work where I can get a data connection but not mobile reception, so I can still find out that someone has been trying to get in touch.
Ditto, been using this for a couple of years. Best part is that you escape the Voicemail fee’s that some network operators like to charge, since it dials a local number to retrieve messages, or you can completely manage it through Gmail which is awesome.
Immensely handy because you just configure Gmail to retrieve attachments when attached to wifi, so the first you find out about the message from an e-mail notification and it’s already there!
I paid for the app, as I was out of the country and it was useful to keep getting messages to my number.
Then I switched to Virgin Mobile and they don’t allow conditional redirects (despite using EE, who do). So I can’t use HulloMail.
Thanks for sharing
just downloaded, Had Visual Voicemail on my iPhone 2G with O2 and it was very good, getting a iPhone4S on Three has taken that away, I cant understand why all the networks dont use it!? Voicemail the old shit way is crap!
Another good reason to pay for the app – you can customise voicemail messages based on who’s calling you.
So I have the boring one for if the work switchboard are calling me (i.e. a redirect), another for the g/f, and then something random/generic for everyone else!
Ahh nice. I will look into that.
Ummm…. if you want to speak to someone, and can’t get through, why the hell would you NOT use voicemail? You’d have to hang up, switch apps, type the message and send it, instead of just saying “Hi, just wanted to chat about the body in your garden. Call me later.”
Then the said person you call has to call their voice mail number or press the voicemail tab and listen to 40seconds of a computer telling you the numebr and time sent then the message, I like most people dont listen to the voice mail but just call/text the person back when they have a missed call listed.
Depends I suppose. If you can get the information over in a text message, you can more easily get it over in a voice mail.
Whether that person responds or not would be up to them.
I hate using it because of the intro menus, but this would be great. Does it also transcribe the message to text?
No, it just list the voicemails and you can press play to listen to the voicemail, no computer voice or calling your voicemail number.
To listen to my voice mail would cost me extra. I get a free notification of missed call and who it was so don’t voice mail.
Talking is quicker than typing, and as sarcasm (my primary affect) is difficult for many to interpret in text form, yes, I still use voicemail (visual, on my iPhone) – although I can appreciate why people without visual voicemail can get annoyed at the slow menus.
Having said that, I’m actually finding dictating texts with Siri to be pretty quick at the moment, and at least saves me having to dig my phone out my pocket if I’m messaging whilst out walking.
I use VoxSciences as it gives excellent voice to text conversion. Couldn’t live without it.
I haven’t used it for years! If someone want me that badly they will keep ringing or text or email..
Yes.
I don’t get a phone signal in my workplace, so yes I do use voicemail. It’s just the easiest way for someone to leave me a message if they call me while my phone is off or I’m at work. I don’t use my home phone, so my mobile is my primary number for everything. They don’t necessarily have other contact details, and many organisations don’t send text messages.
Yes.
Sometimes I need to leave a message for a client to say a job has been done or if I need to discuss something with them once they are out of their meeting. Some of my clients’ also tend to leave a message rather than send an email – especially if the subject needs discussion.
SMS is too informal and email sometimes isn’t the correct medium. Plus, when you know you can’t reach the person by phone you already have it to your head so it’s quicker.
I don’t tend to use it, but sometimes I just leave blank voicemails muahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Wait until you are unemployed and you’ll find Voicemail indispensable.
Plus, Libon Voicefeed is a fantastic replacement for the rather poor experience most people have. Notifications of VMs left, emails sent, customer messages and all for free. Been using it for a couple of years and it makes using VM a delight
Its texting “iPhone visual” to 150 not “visual voicemail” to 150 as quoted.
Been waiting for this since I had it on O2, much better system and if its a function available on the iPhone it should be available with the carriers.
I missed it when I left O2 and went to Orange. Just upgraded to EE and it’s back… yippee.
Those saying why not send a text instead of leaving a voicemail…
It’s cheaper to leave a quick voicemail than a text when you are roaming abroad – certainly in Europe.
And what if you are calling from a landline…. duh!