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

With this live voicemail, is the voicemail still recorded into the phone app? If you answer when they are leaving the message, is any of the message recorded in the phone app? Like what they were saying before you pick up?

Totally confused here.
 
I don’t see this as confusing, the several times I’ve called one of their Google phone numbers I got pretty much the same thing asking me to state the reason for the call. Several call centers do this too
 
The wording of the greeting sort of implies you should say something in order to prompt the person to pick up. In other words, it's a bad greeting! Apple should just use a normal greeting as god intended and not even mention the person picking up.
 
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" May pickup" means if I like you.

The message should be "the person you are calling may pickup if he likes you and you are worthy of his time and if what you're saying is not too boring". 🛎️
 
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TheKrs1 said:
IDK if this is a localization thing, or a beta issue... but for me I have Live Voicemail on iOS 17 Beta and people still hear my standard voicemail message. I just tested this to verify.
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Ditto here, and that's how it's been working for me since the first beta. The only difference is there's no beep after my recorded announcement, but it otherwise stays in sync with my standard Visual Voicemail box, which confused my dad a bit when he called the first fewtimes...
 
Boy, this really doesn't work for people who use their phone for business. A generic voice mail prompt will get most folks to simply hang up. If I can record a custom one maybe better, but man this just seems caller-hostile. If you don't pick up, then you're sending a message that you're not important enough to talk to. That's the last thing I want a customer/prospect to experience.

I plan to disable this feature.
 
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samlikesmac said:
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.
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Well, not if you're using Visual Voicemail, since the message you record is on your iPhone in the first place...

Maybe this is only an issue for folks who don't have Visual Voicemail? For me, callers get the exact same message whether they go to my standard VVM box or Live Voicemail, and it even remains in sync with both when I change it. The only difference is Live Voicemail doesn't beep after my greeting.
 
mebehere said:
With this live voicemail, is the voicemail still recorded into the phone app? If you answer when they are leaving the message, is any of the message recorded in the phone app? Like what they were saying before you pick up?

Totally confused here.
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Yes. It appears in the Voicemail tab in the Phone app in the same way as a standard Visual Voicemail message. You actually can't tell the difference, except that if you dial into your carrier voicemail manually, you won't find that message there as it was recorded directly on the iPhone rather than being downloaded from the VVM server.
 
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Yeah, my parents started speaking and sat in silence confused, so did some strangers whom I forgot why they called.

But it was literally because I didn’t have my phone with me. When I’m at home, my phone is charging in my room, I’ll be using other devices. So I don’t even realize they are doing a live voicemail without me knowing.

It should run on all devices and Apple Watch.
 
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AppleTO said:
By the time regular voicemail comes on, the carrier has taken control of the call. So, not possible. The iPhone is essentially auto-answering.
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True, but the iPhone has a copy of your greeting if you're using Visual Voicemail, and that's how mine has been working since the first beta.

This post actually scared me into thinking Apple had changed something, so I dialed my phone number and confirmed that it's still working the way it has all along... Caller hears my normal greeting, just as if they had hit my normal voicemail box.
 
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MallardDuck said:
Boy, this really doesn't work for people who use their phone for business. A generic voice mail prompt will get most folks to simply hang up. If I can record a custom one maybe better, but man this just seems caller-hostile. If you don't pick up, then you're sending a message that you're not important enough to talk to. That's the last thing I want a customer/prospect to experience.

I plan to disable this feature.
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You just touched on something I or many others may not have considered: How this impacts business users. Sure, you can turn it off, but that sort of skirts the point.
 
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anthogag said:
" May pickup" means if I like you.

The message should be "the person you are calling may pickup if he likes you and you are worthy of his time and if what you're saying is not too boring". 🛎️
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Or
“What, did you forget how to spell or changed your cellular service for a plan with limited texts? Because, that’s the only conceivable reason for this… thing… you’re trying to do here.”
 
I was wondering if I was the only one who had this complaint. This feature is the reason I installed the first developer beta of iOS 17 and I turned it off almost immediately after I got two voicemails from family members who were off put by the new default voicemail message.

I had expected the default greeting to remain the same and I was hoping this was just a bug or we’d get the option of switching back to the old default greeting.

I don’t want my voice on my voicemail. I’ve got a work cell phone that has its caller ID blocked at the carrier level because my employer doesn’t want clients getting our number and calling us directly. They want all calls to come through the office so if it’s an emergency or I’m on vacation, etc. I don’t have to worry about taking calls.

Anyway we have some clients with phone systems that don’t let you through if you’re blocking your caller ID or occasionally I’m at a location where I don’t get a signal on my work cell but I do on my personal cell so if I use it for a work call and forget to shut off my caller ID I don’t want clients calling back, hearing my voicemail in the greeting and leaving a message assuming I’ll get it.

I want my personal cell to have the default greeting message where the caller is prompted by a general voice, and not my own, reading the cell phone number back to the caller and asking them to leave a message. I don’t want the caller to know that I’m potentially reading the message they are leaving and choosing to ignore it. That’s too much information in my view. Maybe I’m reading it and maybe I’m not. I’d rather they didn’t know I even have that option.

Hopefully Apple fixes this by allowing the old default greeting to play if one wants it. For now I’ve simply shut the feature off which totally eliminates an otherwise very, very cool feature that I’d love to use. I’m glad I’m not the only one with this complaint because at this point it doesn’t seem as if this is a bug. It seems like the new default greeting will give the caller what I consider to be TMI and/or confusing information to elderly or non-techie legitimate callers.
 
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It’s so confusing that a guy once told me he yelled out the word gah! And he never says anything like that. So that’s how crazy this is.
 
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gpwdeux said:
in 2023 this is mostly a useless feature anyway. The last voicemail i got from someone I knew was over a year and a half ago. I would prefer to be able to disable VM altogether.
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That may be your experience, but it far from the norm. I get a dozen voicemail messages a week when I don't answer the call.
 
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MacRumors said:


Apple in iOS 17 is introducing a new Live Voicemail feature that is designed to provide you with a transcript of the message that's being left as the person is speaking, so you can choose to pick up the phone if it's important.

Live-Voicemail-iOS-17.jpg

Live Voicemail is functional in both the developer and public betas, and the way the feature is set up has some iPhone users wondering if it's too confusing.

With the Live Voicemail feature enabled, the default voicemail message that was used in iOS 16 has changed. Unless you have a custom-created voicemail message, the default iOS 17 voicemail recording asks callers to provide a reason why they're calling after the tone sounds, and are informed that "the person you're calling may pick up." Note that if you had a custom message in iOS 16, there will be no change, so this impacts people who are using the default voicemail greeting feature.

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:Multiple other Reddit users have had the same problem, receiving confused texts from people or odd voicemail messages that feature dead air. We here at MacRumors have also experienced this same issue. On two occasions, incoming callers heard the message, stated their name, and then waited for the phone to be picked up rather than leaving a voicemail.

It is not yet clear if Apple has plans to make any changes to the default Live Voicemail messaging ahead of when iOS 17 launches this fall. There is an option to customize a voicemail by going to Phone > Voicemail > Greeting > Custom, which can provide a solution as you can record your own message.

If you have the iOS 17 beta and are running into trouble with Live Voicemail and don't want to create a custom voicemail message, the feature can be disabled by opening up the Settings app, going to the Phone section, tapping on the Live Voicemail option, and toggling it off.

Article Link: Is Apple's iOS 17 Live Voicemail Feature Too Confusing?
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Yeah, I don't know if Apple gave this assignment to an intern but when my boss called me and got that message, he texted me "WTF do you mean you *might* answer me???" Not wise Apple, not wise...
 
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Personal answering machines were mostly used at home, outside working hours, though some small businesses used them too.

But now, many of us use our phones at work, including during meetings, where it’s frowned upon to take calls. So it’s helpful to distinguish the ones that can wait from the ones that truly can’t.

I don’t pick up calls from callers or numbers I don’t recognize, and I’ve missed some important messages that way. And, even if I know the caller, I’d like to know what they’re calling about in the moment.

If Apple can make this work with a custom announcement, doing away with the confusing “may pick up” piece, that would be a great feature. People who don’t need it could disable it, but shouldn’t assume there are no valid use cases.
 
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Neepman said:
Another "too cool for school" feature from developers in their mid-20s that have no clue how regular folks think and function in the real world.
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Not just that. All of those sticker-related features are useless for majority of folks who are no longer teenagers. Within family? Maybe. But that’s about it.
As a record, my parents who are in their 60s are still figuring out what an emoji is, let alone sticker and gif.
 
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