Apple’s Next Killer App Is…Voicemail?

DON’T HANG UP! You’ve reached the Grand Reopening of Joanna Stern’s voicemail. After the tone, say your name and why I should pick up right now. Yes, I might be screening calls like it’s 1995. Have an OK day!

For years friends, colleagues and scammers alike got a “This mailbox is full” when they reached my voicemail. Now, I’ve recorded that new greeting and cleaned out the clutter because voicemail is back! 

I mean, if we want it to be.

Apple’s upcoming iOS 17 has a new call-screening feature, “Live Voicemail,” that gives you a real-time text transcript of a voicemail as the caller is leaving it. You can even pick up mid-message. It’s all the fun of an old-school answering machine minus the microcassettes. (iOS 17 was released in a public beta last week and should arrive for all in September.)

It’s pretty great. There’s just one problem: We stopped leaving—and checking—voice messages years ago. Texting “call me” is now more efficient than “blah, blah, call me back at your earliest convenience.”

Heck, back in 2014, 80% of callers didn’t leave messages because they didn’t think they’d be heard. I couldn’t find more recent stats, maybe because pollsters couldn’t find any voicemail users to poll.

For voicemail to make a comeback, we’re going to have to, well, use voicemail. And I think we should. Yes, I hear you doubters: “Sure, and let’s dust off our fax machines while we’re at it!” But hear me out—after the beep.

1. The tech is cool. 

Live Voicemail blew my mind a little the first time I used it on an incoming call from my editor.

Like most days, I ignored his call. But for once, he left a message. As he began, a live transcription of his words typed out on the call screen. I was able to pick up and start talking to him, mid-voicemail. 

My editor expected me to pick up, but my sister had no idea what was coming. Apple’s default robotic greeting in iOS 17 states: “After the tone please say why you are calling. The person you are trying to reach may pick up.” Only there was no tone. (Told you, it’s beta.) So she just sat there waiting and waiting for the beep. My new personalized greeting has fixed the confusion.

Pro tip: The old call-screening excuses (“Just walked into the house,” “My mom was on the other line”) no longer work in this connected age when phone calls can follow you pretty much anywhere you go.

Anyone who has used Apple’s regular voicemail transcription feature knows its voice-to-text translation can be impressionistic at times. (I’m still laughing at the transcription of a message Jason Gay recently left for me: “I have plenty of time to talk” came in as “I tell you to talk to me.”) Live Voicemail has similar issues. Still, you can get a good sense of what’s being said—and it’s worth it for the laughs. Plus, you can go back and listen to the recording—even if you pick up mid-call.

Android doesn’t have an exact equivalent of Live Voicemail, though Google’s Pixel does have an automated assistant that can screen calls for you.

2. Voice is connection.

I’m a big believer in the phone call. There’s a lot that gets lost in back and forth texting—and video calls can be too much. A simple voice message can deliver loads of meaning and feeling.

And yes, I am lumping in those text-chat audio messages. For people in their teens or 20s—who have never heard a busy signal—voice notes really are just voicemail by a different name. They’re hugely popular. WhatsApp says seven billion of them are sent each day. And in iOS 17, Apple added text transcription to voice messages, too.

“The voice carries what are referred to as paralinguistic cues, like intonation, pitch variance, that can convey emotion in a way that text can’t,” said Amit Kumar, an assistant professor of marketing and psychology at University of Texas at Austin, who has studied voice versus text communications.

While Kumar hasn’t specifically researched voicemail and voice memos, he told me that when we choose text over voice, we avoid the chance to make a closer connection.

3. You’re better than spam.

In a world where our texts are the new email and our call log is stacked with robocallers, a human voice can cut through the mess. (Hopefully it’s not an AI clone!) 

That’s been the strategy for a growing number of companies you actually do business with, said Alex Quilici, the chief executive of YouMail, an app that provides voicemail and protection against robocalls and robotexts. When you hear a real person, he told me, “you’re more likely to pay attention to that voicemail.”

Some of these new tools help with the spam. YouMail’s Android and iOS app restricts robocallers from ringing your phone and popping up in your voicemail. The same goes for Apple’s Live Voicemail. The company says calls that carriers identify as spam are instantly declined and won’t get live-transcribed.

There’s another trick in iOS 17. You can screen any non-spam caller who isn’t in your address book—whether it’s a doctor’s office, a random work contact or a No Caller ID number—by turning on Silence Unknown Callers. With the software update, it will now route those callers straight to Live Voicemail. If they start to leave a message, you can screen it. But yeah, that’s a big “if.”

So take a deep breath, dial that friend or colleague and bring back the trend. Come on, we did this for 30-some-odd years. Your voice(mail) matters.

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