Tech company is testing voicemail transcription feature
Many smartphone users, particularly those that fall in the millennial age range, find the whole receiving-then-listening-to a voicemail process tiresome. Taking that cue, Apple is apparently testing a way that would make the whole process a thing of the past.
According to a report from Fortune, Apple is testing technology that could potentially see the digital assistant Siri receive voicemail, transcribe the message to text, then send it to the voicemail recipient in a text message.
As Fortune points out, citing a 2012 survey done by the Pew Research Center, this evolution of technology is keeping pace with the end-users’ preference.
According to that study, 63% of teens said they text every day with friends and family.
The Verge reports that the new service is called iCloud Voicemail and is slated for a launch sometime in 2016.
And although a novel feature, Google Voice has had a similar offering for several years.
The report initially appeared in Business Insider, which reports that Apple employees are testing a version of the feature.
From that article: “Apple’s proposed solution is both incredibly simple and incredibly clever: People like to leave voicemails (it’s often quicker to orally deliver your information than it is to type it in a text message). But they don’t like to receive voicemails (it’s a lot quicker to read a text than it is to listen to the person talking to you). The new product will also bridge a generation gap: Older users like voicemails. Young people do not.”
As competitor Microsoft continues to improve its Cortana assistant, Apple has continuously added functionality to Siri. Some watchers think the new voicemail-to-text feature will be part of the next operating system.
