I have been frustrated trying to listen to Voicemail on my iPhone for years.
When you first activate a voice mail, it immediately starts playing at a very low level, before one has the opportunity to choose whether to use the speaker or not.
Once the voice mail does start playing at a very quiet level, one can try and flick around with Voiceover to find the "audio destination" button, but Voiceover is then so quiet that it is hard to find the button.
If one does manage to find the "audio destination" button, there are two problems:
1. Activating the button doesn't always seem to switch into speaker mode.
2. If one manages to pause the playback and activate the button, it still continues to say "audio destination" instead of something sensible that will tell you which audio destination is being used.
Suggestion: It would be nice if one could choose to use speaker mode or not before playback starts so that one doesn't miss the beginning of the message.
Better suggestion: It would be great if listening to voice mail made use of the "hold to speak" option that can be used during ordinary phone calls, i.e., if one holds the phone away from one's ear, speaker mode is automatically activated.
I'm always amazed how difficult it is to listen to voice mails on iPhones, especially since, acting as a PHONE, is one of the main functions of an iPhone!
I've complained about this to Apple several times over the years but haven't seen any helpful modifications.
Are other users similarly frustrated with this behavior when using Voiceover? Any suggestions for making this process a more pleasurable experience for the user?
Thanks.
--Pete
Comments
Hold to Speak Option
I also think that the hold to speak option would be a very helpful additional feature to the phone app when it comes to listening to voicemail.
This is kind of a weird workaround but...
Hey there,
I find that if I get voice mail, hitting the edit button at the top of the screen, selecting the message and marking it as read before trying to play it helps a lot here.
Once you mark it as read, go back to that message, expand it, and read the transcript if you wish, or explore the screen and pick audio destination or tap play and hold the phone to your ear.
I hope this makes sense and is helpful.
The coffee to blood ratio is still not quite where I need it yet today. :)
This works fore me
After selecting the message to play, via a one-finger double tap, immediately do a two-finger tap to pause VO. You should be able to hear the message. After you have heard the message, do the two-finger tap to unpause VO.
I hope this helps.
Hold to speak works for me
When a new voice message starts playing, I put the phone to my ear, then pull it away. It immediately switches to speaker mode. For some reason this only works for new unread messages, not old read messages. Picture me scratching my head.
Re: Weird workaround
Thanks for that hint. That seems to work. A bunch more taps than I would like, and not very efficient, but at least that works. What would be nice is if the voice mail didn't automatically start playing when activated if it was unread. Alternately, the audio destination button should be in the main dialog.
Anyway, thanks.
--Pete
Probably a good idea to submit a bug report and feedback
If it’s ok, I am going to take your suggestion and create a bug report. It’s actually very well described. I would say that it would probably be a good idea for you to keep pushing them and even create a bug report on your own and submit it. I know that you said that you’ve been dealing with this for several years. It has been an issue for quite some time. I’ve personally been more focused on text message transcripts which are provided by my carrier.
Note to Apple
Following up on your suggestion, here is the note I sent to Apple Accesibility:
My system: iPhone XR running iOS 16.6
I have experienced a number of issues over the years using various versions of the iPhone and various versions of iOS when trying to listen to voicemail messages. I would like to suggest that the UI be modified to make listening to voicemails with Voiceover active a more pleasurable and less frustrating experience for the user.
I recently posted about this on AppleVis to get some suggestions and see what other users have experienced. Apparently my issues are not unique. See:
https://www.applevis.com/comment/150944#comment-150944
Let me describe my experiences and suggest some modifications to the UI that might help address these issues.
The first issue is that when activating a new unread voicemail from the voicemail dialog, the voicemail immediately starts to play. The problem with this is:
1. The user cannot decide prior to starting playback of the voicemail message whether to listen in “speaker” mode or not.
2. When activated, the voicemail message plays very quietly. Even when holding the phone close to one’s ear, it can sometimes be difficult to hear. This is a problem because:
a. One has to pull the phone away f from one’s ear in order to swipe to the “audio destination” button while the voicemail message is playing if one wants to listen in “speaker” mode. Thus one misses part of the message.
b. The Voiceover audio is dramatically reduced. This is particularly an issue because One can have difficulty hearing Voiceover while the message is playing in the background and one is trying to swipe to the “audio destination” button in order to switch to “speaker” mode. This makes it difficult to find the appropriate button to activate.
Suggestion #1: There should be a “speaker on/off” button on the main dialog showing the list of read and unread voicemail messages. This way the user could decide how one wanted to listen to the message before automatic playback of the message starts.
Suggestion #2: Wouldn’t it be nice if “hold to speak” would work when listening to voicemail messages as it does when talking during a phone call. This would mean that the message would play on speaker if the user held the phone away from one’s ear and turn off the speaker if the phone was brought close to the user’s ear.
A second problem with the voicemail UI dialog is that activating the “Playback Destination” button when using Voiceover gives no useful feedback. Often when I perform a single finger double tap of the button, the button continues to say “Audio Destination” and this does not seem to switch speaker mode on/off.
Suggestion: It would be helpful if activating this button actually toggled on/off speaker mode and said something like “speaker on” and “speaker off”. Alternately, make this an element on which one could swipe up/down to change the audio destination and hear appropriate feedback.
Some users on AppleVis have proposed awkward and gesture intensive workarounds for the above issues and/or use the “transcript” to read the voicemail content, but I think Apple can do much better here.
I hope that some consideration can be given to greatly improving the user experience when listening to voicemail with Voiceover active and make this a better experience. After all, it is a PHONE that we are using and the phone functions should be turnkey!
Thanks.
Have a nice day.
--Pete
Reporting to Apple Accessibility
If other folks have comments that they would like to make to Apple concerning the issues surrounding listening to voicemails with Voiceover, you can reference the following case (which was created based on the comments copied into my last post):
Case-ID: 3607990
As usual, the e-mail for Apple accessibility is:
accedssibility@apple.com
--Pete
Visual VoiceMail Alternative?
I myself have fallen back to just dialing my voicemail system the way one does on a traditional phone. I appreciate the ability to use either approach given that both approaches have their own unique sets of advantages and disadvantages. Using the Visual Voicemail system, it is easier to delete a message or to return a call. Using the traditional voicemail system, it is easier to switch between the speaker or the softer volume with the iPhone nearer to your head. Using T-Mobile, I can either press and hold the 1 key on the keypad or type 1-2-3 to reach my traditional voicemail system. Both approaches are working, after a fashion, for me.