IOS 11.4, Verizon, voicemail transcription

[RouterGuy]

Voicemail transcription is back and still has no mechanism by which it can be disabled. This started after the 11.4 update (I'm on Verizon). Introduces a delay before you are alerted to a new voicemail while the machine cobbles together a poor written transcription of the message.

Left feedback on Apple's site for all the good that does. Thought I'd post on the off chance someone discovered a way to turn it off. This has been a beta 'feature' that has been forced on users periodically over the years.

 

[cynics]

Did you have another thread about this? Just curious because if not someone else reported this issue.

How long is this delay?

Generally the voicemail is accessible prior to the transcription (you’ll see transcription unable or something to that extent) but there is a delay from the time someone leaves their message until the time it’s uploaded to your phone. So if someone spends 2 minutes leaving a message plus 2-3 minutes for it be recorded on Verizon’s server, encoded to a file, uploaded to iCloud and finally seeded to your devices = 4-5 minutes. Plus you have any delay in the upload due to network conditions.

If it’s a mission critical message (work, pregnant wife, etc) you can call Verizon voicemail directly to bypass further processing and network use.

 

[RouterGuy]

No other thread, no. The length of the delay is dependent on the length of the voicemail. A longer voicemail takes longer to transcribe.

While the voicemail is immediately accessible as you say, you don't get the alert that there is a new voicemail till the transcription completes. And that sucks.

Anyway for a workaround I enabled Siri, set its language to some random non-English option, and then turned it back off. This prevents transcriptions from being attempted.