Not having to listen to voicemail is tremendous. I have probably saved dozens if not hundreds of hours of my life by not having to dial in, cycle through until I get to the correct message, listen (at least once perhaps twice to catch the number), then write numbers down. With transcription, I get an email with the who, what, why, and the number which I can just tap to call. Also, PhoneTag’s transcription is the best I have found for non-enterprise use, and even there it could be top tier as I have not evaluated those solutions.
Now, this all takes into account the assumption that the voicemail itself can be transcribed. There are times when the transcription fails; it could be due to noise, interference, a thick accent, or just a different language entirely (I get calls in French and Italian which fail – at least for now). At that point one needs to actually listen to the voicemail, and this is where I have hit my iPhone wall. I know I can dial in but that kind of defeats the purpose, isn’t Internationally friendly with an 800 #, and not to mention the fact that there ought to be a more tech friendly solution.
So, what are the options?:
Phonetag offers a full Web site where one can preview the transcription of the voicemail and also listen to the actual audio file. If you open up the Phonetag site in mobile Safari and try to listen to a voicemail, it fails. Mobile Safari doesn’t embed the QuickTime file the way desktop browsers do: it tries to open up some embedded version of the QuickTime player which spits out an ugly and deeply unhelpful “Cannot Play Movie – The server is not correctly configured” error. Great. By the way, there is no irony lost on me though: it’s a QuickTime file which is an Apple format, in mobile Safari which is Apple’s mobile browser, on an iPhone which (all together now) is an Apple device, and it just doesn’t work. It’s a simple QuickTime file and should not be up to the server and its streaming protocols or header info, as to whether it works or not in an entirely Apple based user experience. Result: Fail.
There is a way to have the audio included in the email sent to you but this is done on a global level, and that is the last thing I want clogging up my email. It would be nice if one could login to the Web site and choose to have messages emailed on a message by message basis.
Anyway, I used to be in the blackberry world and there is a native blackberry application which is pretty great (as far as blackberry apps go): it would download the transcriptions in the background and stream the audio on demand (it might have even pre-fetched and cached it).
Here’s the real iPhone problem. There’s no way Apple will ever approve a native app since Phonetag/Simulscribe directly competes with the visual voicemail product. I know Jott got approved but I think there’s enough difference in the product offering and conflict with existing Apple tech that I could see Apple’s “logic” for approving one and not the other. Then there was the whole Google Voice non-approval fiasco from a couple of weeks ago.
So, barring a native app, which I could easily envision blowing away the blackberry version, that leaves us with the web site which doesn’t work in mobile safari, or calling in which is what I am trying to avoid at all costs not to mention that it’s an 800 # and not too helpful when abroad. I’m starting to wonder if Phonetag will ever have full iPhone compatibility.
Am I missing something with PhoneTag? If so, please save me, and if not, how does everyone out there listen to voicemails if you have an iPhone and Simulscribe/Phonetag? Anyone? I wonder if Google Voice will fix this issue? If so, I might have to say goodbye to PhoneTag, and that would be really sad as it is the better transcription service. TBD/TBC…
Here’s some further confirmation that we’ll never see a PhoneTag iPhone app:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/apple-lifts-the-curtain-on-app-store-approvals/?hpw
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/technology/companies/22apple.html?hpw
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/apple-lifts-the-curtain-on-app-store-approvals/?hpw
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/22/technology/companies/22apple.html?hpw
