Ugh. That's soooo what I needed to know.
Ha. Thank you so so much! So once again, I'll reaffirm that yes, I love having the option of visual vmail especially since I now know how to use a freaking landline to check vmails, too. 
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Visual Voicemail sucks... how can I disable it?
- Thread starter chelsel
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Ha. Thank you so so much! So once again, I'll reaffirm that yes, I love having the option of visual vmail especially since I now know how to use a freaking landline to check vmails, too. 
I have a completely reasonable reason why I want it turned off! I loved my iPhone save for one thing, that I can not initiate any kind of voice dialing with my bluetooth control! ABSOLUTELY an essential to me and my work! The only option I had was AT&T's VERY PATHETIC $5 a month voice dial service. Not only is it lousy, but nobody at AT&T seems to understand it, you have to make *8 the last number you dialed all the time, and why pay?
So I put the iPhone in a drawer and got a Windows Mobile phone because Micro$oft's Voice Command is an INCREDIBLY good program. In almost every other way I preferred the iPhone, but twice now my voice dial account has gotten FUBARed so badly that I actually had to end up changing my phone number, which was the last straw because that is VERY bad for business and in every other way I can imagine!
The trouble is now I get a lot of unreadable text messages and I am 90% sure that visual voice dial is the reason. I am NOT going to tell AT&T I am not using the iPhone because I am not sure they would but I have every reason to believe they would find some way to jack up my bill.
The other reason is because I always hear so much about how Micro$oft is an evil money grubbing corporation, but guys, lets be honest! Apple could teach Micro$oft a LOT about chiseling the customer for every penny!
What I have is an AT&T Tilt with Win Mobile 6.1 and it is an awesome phone, if not as nice or hip, slick, and cool as an iPhone.
So if anyone has any idea about this I would REALLY appreciate it!
So I put the iPhone in a drawer and got a Windows Mobile phone because Micro$oft's Voice Command is an INCREDIBLY good program. In almost every other way I preferred the iPhone, but twice now my voice dial account has gotten FUBARed so badly that I actually had to end up changing my phone number, which was the last straw because that is VERY bad for business and in every other way I can imagine!
The trouble is now I get a lot of unreadable text messages and I am 90% sure that visual voice dial is the reason. I am NOT going to tell AT&T I am not using the iPhone because I am not sure they would but I have every reason to believe they would find some way to jack up my bill.
The other reason is because I always hear so much about how Micro$oft is an evil money grubbing corporation, but guys, lets be honest! Apple could teach Micro$oft a LOT about chiseling the customer for every penny!
What I have is an AT&T Tilt with Win Mobile 6.1 and it is an awesome phone, if not as nice or hip, slick, and cool as an iPhone.
So if anyone has any idea about this I would REALLY appreciate it!
go into APN settings ( http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2283 ) and make a note then delete the Visual voicemail settings.
and then type in *5005*86*1234# (where 1234 is the number you want to call when you press the Voicemail button) in the dialer. or read this http://www.celifornia.com/blog/2008/02/11/iphone-howto-set-voicemail-on-non-supported-carriers/
it may also work without deleting the APN settings you could try without deleting them first
and then type in *5005*86*1234# (where 1234 is the number you want to call when you press the Voicemail button) in the dialer. or read this http://www.celifornia.com/blog/2008/02/11/iphone-howto-set-voicemail-on-non-supported-carriers/
it may also work without deleting the APN settings you could try without deleting them first
The "Visual Voicemail" name seems misleading. It isn't really more "visual" than regular old voicemail. My old regular (not so smart) phone showed me how many voicemails I had, the difference is that on the iPhone the voicemail is stored on the phone itself and I don't have to make a call to get them. How is that "visual"? I know, I know, it's just marketing.....
Its visual because you can see who the messages are from instead of having to listen to each message in order to find a later one on your message roll. Also, it gives you the choice to skip ahead in each message to a particular part instead of listening to the whole thing. IMO thats why its Visual Voicemail.
You could try the YouMail app. I believe it's designed to give VV to T-Mobile users, but since you don't want the voicemails downloading in the background, it could work for you. It only downloads when you open the app (I could be mistaken about this, but that's the only time it downloads for me). You can choose to call to hear your voicemails instead of download them. It also has fun extras like custom greetings and assigning contacts their own greeting or the "Smart Greeting" which greets each caller by name.
Usually when I listen to voicemail, or am watching voicemail rather, I really dont have time to do anything else, I click on the person, hear message, click delete, rinse and repeat until all done then clear the delete box. I love visual voicemail, I dont have to hear that annoying robot, "you have 5 new messages, first unheard message..." it gets annoying tbh.
Converting Visual Voice Mail to Standard Voice Mail
I agree with the overall thread that visual voice mail is great and doesn't really use that much band width. There is, however, another reason to remove it. AT&T has a service call unified voice mail messaging. This allows your home voice mail and your wireless voice mail to be unified. In other words no more worries about missing a message at home, because you never check the home VM. All your voice mails go to the same voice mail box.
Here's the catch, unfortunately the UVERSE voice mail system works by sending your VM to a different voice mail server than the usual wireless voice mails. For reasons I do not understand this server is NOT compatible with the iPhone visual voice mail. In other words unless you de activate the visual voice mail that button will be totally useless and won't even tell you how many voice mail messages you have. There is a work around which involves downloading AT&T's nifty VM Viewer, which in some ways has better functionality but is very buggy (ie crashes and takes forever to load up).
In anycase I think the following procedure inactivates the VM and redirects the number dialed to the one your current voice mail uses.
Please note that you will need to substitute your VM number for the 18583526900. In other words you need to ask your company what your VM dial up number is.
iPhone Instructions
*5005*86*18583526900#
CALL
HOME MENU
SETTINGS
GENERAL
RESET ALL SETTINGS
I agree with the overall thread that visual voice mail is great and doesn't really use that much band width. There is, however, another reason to remove it. AT&T has a service call unified voice mail messaging. This allows your home voice mail and your wireless voice mail to be unified. In other words no more worries about missing a message at home, because you never check the home VM. All your voice mails go to the same voice mail box.
Here's the catch, unfortunately the UVERSE voice mail system works by sending your VM to a different voice mail server than the usual wireless voice mails. For reasons I do not understand this server is NOT compatible with the iPhone visual voice mail. In other words unless you de activate the visual voice mail that button will be totally useless and won't even tell you how many voice mail messages you have. There is a work around which involves downloading AT&T's nifty VM Viewer, which in some ways has better functionality but is very buggy (ie crashes and takes forever to load up).
In anycase I think the following procedure inactivates the VM and redirects the number dialed to the one your current voice mail uses.
Please note that you will need to substitute your VM number for the 18583526900. In other words you need to ask your company what your VM dial up number is.
iPhone Instructions
*5005*86*18583526900#
CALL
HOME MENU
SETTINGS
GENERAL
RESET ALL SETTINGS
Update
This all worked well for my iphone 3GS, but did not seem to work for my iphone 4. I reviewed the other answers and found that if you go to:
Settings - General - Network - and then TURN OFF Cellular DATA (apparently for AT&T you can only turn it on or off you can not edit or remove the visual settings). and then go back and do the steps:
*5005*86*18583526900#
CALL
HOME MENU
SETTINGS
GENERAL
RESET ALL SETTINGS
It works. You then simply go back and turn on cellular data again and it still holds. Not sure why that step was necessary for the iPhone 4, but since it works I am happy.
This all worked well for my iphone 3GS, but did not seem to work for my iphone 4. I reviewed the other answers and found that if you go to:
Settings - General - Network - and then TURN OFF Cellular DATA (apparently for AT&T you can only turn it on or off you can not edit or remove the visual settings). and then go back and do the steps:
*5005*86*18583526900#
CALL
HOME MENU
SETTINGS
GENERAL
RESET ALL SETTINGS
It works. You then simply go back and turn on cellular data again and it still holds. Not sure why that step was necessary for the iPhone 4, but since it works I am happy.
Press and hold down the "1" key on the Keypad screen, it'll get you into the Voicemail system the old way. ... Though I wouldn't know why one would want to.