Apple's enhanced Siri will answer phone calls, transcribe voicemails in 2016 - report
Apple is reportedly testing a service that will have its voice driven personal assistant, Siri, answer phone calls when a user is unavailable and then transcribe voicemails to text so that they can be quickly read.
Apple's so-called "iCloud Voicemail" feature is said to be in the works for a 2016 launch, according to Business Insider. When an iPhone owner is unavailable, Siri will answer the call and can share information, such as where the recipient is and why they can't take the call.
Employees at Apple are said to be testing the feature currently, though it isn't expected to launch until next year, presumably with an iOS 10 upgrade.
With an iCloud Voicemail service, Apple would bypass carrier voicemail altogether, offering its own alternative. When the first iPhone debuted in 2007, Apple's proprietary Visual Voicemail feature was one of the main selling points of the product.
AppleInsider first detailed Apple's concept for a smart call waiting system in 2012 through a patent filing. The invention described a system that would tell an incoming caller what the user is doing, and then translate their voicemail into text.
Apple's so-called "iCloud Voicemail" feature is said to be in the works for a 2016 launch, according to Business Insider. When an iPhone owner is unavailable, Siri will answer the call and can share information, such as where the recipient is and why they can't take the call.
Employees at Apple are said to be testing the feature currently, though it isn't expected to launch until next year, presumably with an iOS 10 upgrade.
With an iCloud Voicemail service, Apple would bypass carrier voicemail altogether, offering its own alternative. When the first iPhone debuted in 2007, Apple's proprietary Visual Voicemail feature was one of the main selling points of the product.
AppleInsider first detailed Apple's concept for a smart call waiting system in 2012 through a patent filing. The invention described a system that would tell an incoming caller what the user is doing, and then translate their voicemail into text.
Comments
Like everything else...its probably not "doing it" thats the problem....its "doing it for hundreds of millions of users all day everyday".
EDIT: I'm only talking about the voice-to-text aspect. Not the rest of the far more advanced feature.
"Your wife called. I didn't tell her you were lunching with your secretary but you'd better call her ASAP.'
Doesn't Google Voice already do this?
What other smartphone has this feature? thats what I thought.
I asked a serious question, which is why can't they do this now. As others have pointed out, the difference between cellular calls/carrier voicemail and VOIP is likely the reason why there are walls in place.
That's right. As artificial intelligence improves, eventually we will all have the equivalent of a disembodied professional personal assistant working for us 24 hours a day.
"Your lawyer called and your wife and her lawyer have set a meeting for first thing tomorrow... Would you like to listen to Beats 1 radio?"
BTW, neural network processing is now the way to go. Apple will use network processing, just as Amazon and Google do. Google Voice only recently started using their neural processing to do so according to their blog post. Doing so greatly increases the accuracy. It used to be humorously inaccurate at times.
I've long been frustrated that marketing-driven cell companies haven't integrated GV's features into their services. It would be a good selling point. But having Apple build those features into iOS would be even better. Lets hope these rumors prove true.
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Oh, and if anyone on the Siri team is reading this, why not add several age-adjusted children modes to Siri? In child mode, when told "Show me a kitty," it would show a picture of a kitty. That sort of thing. The current Siri is dully adult in how it responds.
Google Voice has been doing this for years. I had Google voice enabled on my phone solely for the voicemail transcription feature (it also texted you the transcription).
Or rather have a disembodied professional voice replace us completely.
The part I want most is the ability to have my voicemail available on all devices. It's the one thing that's still stuck on just my phone. If we can move away from carrier voicemail completely, that would solve a ton of problems for me. Can't wait to see it!
Exactly. Plus you can't access without signing in. I often use Siri when driving which would not be possible with a 3rd party system even if I wanted to be tracked and spammed.
Oh I so agree with that. It's like being tied to the 1990s. Like cable TV interfaces!
That's right. As artificial intelligence improves, eventually we will all have the equivalent of a disembodied professional personal assistant working for us 24 hours a day.
And making even more mistakes than a minimum wage worker.
Siri's got a long way to go. I would have thought there would have been vast and substantive improvements by now.