Is Apple's iOS 17 Live Voicemail Feature Too Confusing?

[Apple Fan 2008]

It's a family of raccoons!
A mom and babies.
They're super friendly and so cute, but they
kinda stink. After I feed...

That's when you pick up the phone and ask "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!?!" 🤣 I mean I like animals and all, but I'm not insane! 🤣

 

[Saturnine]

Apple may need to tweak the wording but this just seems like one of those issues of familiarity. Some Android phones have had this feature for a while. Before too long it’ll become ubiquitous and people will cotton on to how they should use it.

 

[MisterSavage]

This seems over-engineered. Just play the voicemail greeting as normal and give the recipient the option of picking up. You know, like we used to do with answering machines.

Agreed. Or make it a setting to not play that message. This is a feature I'm really looking forward to. I don't answer calls from numbers I don't recognize and sometimes miss calls I would have taken.

 

[jwdsail]

Good grief.

Sure hope we can customize the greeting to match our regular greeting when the iOS upgrade ships.. Otherwise, will be leaving this "feature" off.

 

[jz0309]

I don't know, I do have "silence unknown callers" on pretty much at all times, and I do also get voicemails from spammers like trying to sell me something. I certainly would not want for them to hear "may answer the phone ..."
I almost feel this is a solution looking for a problem ... but good that it can be disabled

 

[SilenceBroken]

lol my wife hates this (and REALLY hates the new photo selection thing in messages)

 

[sw1tcher]

Is "may pick up" a confusing phrase for some people? It doesn't mean "will pick up".

A lot of people don't know the difference between "may" and "can," so yeah, I can understand how some people would get confused between "may" and "will"

Example...

A kid asking a parent for permission to go to the movies:

"Can I go to the movies tonight?" = wrong

"May I go to the movies tonight?" = correct

The "may pick up" wording seems to be confusing some people who are calling iPhone owners that have iOS 17 installed. Two separate Reddit threads feature complaints from Reddit users who have received calls from people who have not understood Apple's messaging. From Reddit:

I just received a voicemail where someone explained their call and then sat in silence for 2 full minutes because they expected me to pick up.

2 minutes of silence 🤣 🤣 🤣

 

[Gathomblipoob]

I don't think it's confusing. It's a cool feature yet a little shady. It can be reliable!

At times, I wish Apple had worked on Walkie-Talkie for iPhones in iOS 17.

View attachment 2232559

Why shady? I remember when folks listened to their answering machines in order to screen calls.

 

[Attirex]

Just a small taste of the future with Gen Z at the helm.....

 

[CPx]

Yeah I was taken back a bit first time I tested it. It's just weird. It should just say "leave a message," blah blah aka the usual stuff.

Also, seeing the live transcript is too difficult from a locked screen. It should either just automatically fire up Face ID and unlock, or have a button that says "show message" that triggers Face ID and unlocks the phone and displays the live message. Not sure if the current behavior is deliberate for privacy reasons or something, but it's a pain.

 

[AgeOfSpiracles]

I agree with everyone saying that it should just play the normal greeting to the caller, but I also could not give a flying duck if the person get's confused. Leave a message, say what you need to, and hang up. I may pick up. I may call back. I may ignore you. World keeps on spinning.

 

[Carolwins]

Sounds like there are lots of people out there that aren’t the smartest in the world.

 

[roland.g]

With the Live Voicemail feature enabled, your standard voicemail function is bypassed. The person calling you does not hear the typical voicemail message that you might have customized, as Apple has replaced the wording. Callers are told to provide a reason why they're calling after the tone sounds, and are informed that "the person you're calling may pick up."

That is just DUMB. I expected when it was announced that it was a feature of the voicemail being transcribed. The caller does not and should not know that you may or may not be screening the call. This defeats the functionality and takes the potentially 1 actually innovative feature in all of iOS 17 and makes a mess out of it.

 

[jbc25]

It introduces a weird element of uncertainty. The last time there was a generally expected possibillity of someone listening in live was back when landlines and tape-based answering machines were in wide usage. It's been a while.

It's very true that it's been a while since people expected that the person they're calling might pick up mid-message, and I think that explains Apple's reasoning on this. They don't want callers to be startled when the person all of sudden picks up and starts talking in the midst of leaving their message. In the age of answering machines, everyone knew that you could just sit there and listen to the person talking on the machine and pick up at any time. These days, that's not expected. So I get why Apple is doing this, but the language they chose to explain it in the outgoing message is pretty bad by Apple standards. "May pick up" is obviously going to confuse people, at least at first until this becomes a more common thing.

 

[phenste]

wtf is the point of this feature if you can’t have a custom greeting?

would be so easy to just record one like “hey, sorry can’t make it to the phone, if it’s an emergency leave a message and I’ll pick up if I can”—aka…basically already what I have as my voicemail?

confusing execution on Apple’s part for sure. hopefully they realize this and allow for a custom greeting before official release.

 

[samlikesmac]

I can only assume it’s not technically possible for them to place this feature after your carrier voicemail message hence why they did it this way. However, I think they missed the mark a bit on the process. It is a jarring message to hear and then saying they MAY answer the phone is unnecessary imo.

 

[kuwxman]

I just turned it off myself after experiencing this several times. Couldn’t figure out why several voicemails were just people stating their name then dead air.

I’ve been applying to jobs recently so the final straw was a recruiter telling me about the confusion after I called him back.

 

[rjohnstone]

First words out of my wife's mouth after trying to call me... "WTF is this crap?"
Disabled it on the spot.

 

[75Batt]

You’re a moron if you’re confused by this

 

[blodyholy]

What it would boil down to me as it relates to confusion, is hearing that message, regardless of wording, when I’m expecting the persons normal VM.

 

[jarman92]

Literally no reason for them to have changed the outgoing message. Change it back and it’ll be fine.

 

[gk_brown]

At times, I wish Apple had worked on Walkie-Talkie for iPhones in iOS 17.

Completely agree. Not sure why they didn't do that.

I like the idea of transcribing voicemail, but I'd be fine waiting until after the caller has left a complete message.

I'd also be fine with a way to listen to the voice message as it is being recorded, similar to how answering machines used to work. Then I could choose to pick up or not.

 

[coffeemilktea]

I haven't tried the beta yet, but it kinda looks like Call Screen on the Google Pixel? 🤔 (is it so different that it really confuses people?)

 

[clester2295]

I keep getting 2 minute empty voicemails

 

[3166792]

So far I've had nothing but positive surprise and enthusiasm towards the Live Voicemail feature but I'm not in the US so that might make the difference. 🕵️‍♂️