Apple Testing Service That Allows Siri to Answer Calls and Transcribe Voicemail 70
An anonymous reader writes: Apple is reportedly testing a new feature which would allow Siri to answer your calls and then transcribe the voicemails as text messages. The iCloud service would then send users the text of that transcribed voicemail. Apple employees are testing a voicemail service currently and a public release isn't expected until sometime in 2016 in iOS10.
Get ready (Score:1)
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Hello there, Grand Theft Internet Guy. - Siri
Re: Get ready (Score:2)
I'm getting ready for the mass media to shot "OMG A TOTALLY NEW THING NOBODY HAS EVER DONE BEFORE FROM APPLE!â
Forgetting of course that Apple has been trying to cripple Google Voice from running on iOS for years.
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ObRef: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jo... [netfunny.com]
Answering calls? (Score:4, Interesting)
It sounds like they're really just talking about transcribing voicemails, but by saying that Siri will "answer calls", it made me wonder if there might be a future in Siri (or something like it) replacing phone tree systems with something a little more intelligent. For example, could you have a system that didn't just look for certain keywords, but ask the caller what kind of issue they're calling about, and then route the call appropriately. In some cases, Siri might route it to a live phone operator, in others she might automatically transcribe the caller's statements and route it to the right person's email, or attach it to the correct trouble-ticket. Maybe if the system were smart enough, it could even prioritize incoming calls, or interrupt current phone calls, (e.g. "Excuse me Mr. Nine-Times, but there is an urgent phone call from one of your most important clients. Can you take the phone call right now?")
I hadn't really thought about that before, but it seems like a market that could really use a better solution. Phone trees suck.
Re:Answering calls? (Score:4, Insightful)
Like everyone else, I'm getting an increasing number of spam calls on my business cell. I can't whitelist (block all calls not in my Contacts) because some unknown numbers represent new customers. But if Siri can be programmed to recognize spammers and send them packing with a stream of choice expletives, this would be a godsend. To being with, spam calls usually begin with a short delay. Then there are the speech patterns advertisers and political wheedlers commonly use. Siri could even feed you through a "translucent" piece of the caller's spiel overlaid by its own "Shall I take this call?"
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I have something like this with Google Voice. I can mark an incoming call as spam and block them from ever calling me again. Just like with spam e-mail filters, other people can do this too which can result in a phone call not even ringing my cell phone. And when a spammer tries calling me, they get a "This number is no longer in service" message.
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Then there are the speech patterns advertisers and political wheedlers commonly use. Siri could even feed you through a "translucent" piece of the caller's spiel overlaid by its own "Shall I take this call?"
This reminds me of Grand Central, the service that eventually became Google Voice. It had features where you could say, for example, "Right now, if someone in my family calls, route them them directly to my cell phone. If one of my work contacts calls, route them to my work voicemail. If an unknown number calls, ask them to leave a voicemail, but let me listen into the the voicemail and I'll decide whether to take the call."
I think it was a great feature set, but it was probably too complicated to be wo
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Whitepages Caller ID app does this for me, but I'm on Android. Also, it does not respond with expletives.
Re:Answering calls? (Score:4, Funny)
Also, it does not respond with expletives.
They need to fix that, it's a great app otherwise.
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Spam callers for me have been extremely helpful this past year. They always tend to match my area code, and the first three digits of my number, with the final 4 digits being random, so when I see an unknown number come up that matches the first 6 digts of my number I instantly know it is a spammer and can ignore the call!
Thanks for making it so easy!
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AT&T has for years used an automated system for handling service outages & other problems. The fact that it sort of works in its restricted way is impressive but the frustration of dealing with yet another cheap-ass corporate answering machine, unable to flexibly deal with real customer problems, is not.
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It sounds like they're really just talking about transcribing voicemails, but by saying that Siri will "answer calls", it made me wonder if there might be a future in Siri (or something like it) replacing phone tree systems with something a little more intelligent. For example, could you have a system that didn't just look for certain keywords, but ask the caller what kind of issue they're calling about, and then route the call appropriately. In some cases, Siri might route it to a live phone operator, in others she might automatically transcribe the caller's statements and route it to the right person's email, or attach it to the correct trouble-ticket. Maybe if the system were smart enough, it could even prioritize incoming calls, or interrupt current phone calls, (e.g. "Excuse me Mr. Nine-Times, but there is an urgent phone call from one of your most important clients. Can you take the phone call right now?")
I hadn't really thought about that before, but it seems like a market that could really use a better solution. Phone trees suck.
I know that nothing has truly been invented until Apple invents it, but such intelligent IVR"s have been around for years with varying levels of success. The reason the simple "Press N for X" phone trees continue to be popular is because they are easy to implement in the phone system, easy to maintain using a simple GUI, and easy for companies (even small companies) to understand.
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And actually, less prone to error and less frustrating for users to use.
Ask anyone with a heavy accent how well IVRs work, and th
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The trick though is to realize that numbers still work, and hitting "0" often works to get you to a human the fastest.
Alas, not so much anymore -- companies know that users know that 0 gets them the operator, so now many of them either have 0 start over, or do nothing so as not to waste precious human time dealing with humans.
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, it made me wonder if there might be a future in Siri (or something like it) replacing phone tree systems with something a little more intelligent.
That's a main goal of IBM's Watson project. They didn't spend millions of dollars just trying to impress Alex Trebek.
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the service will probably be focused on consumer rather than bidness use. but it could give different messages to different callers based on address book, as you say interrupt the phone owner for different needs, etc. I like siri. in fact, one of the things I miss most on my apple watch is siri's voice.
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Apple had a concept video from the late 80's I think that showed someone interacting with their Mac (a laptop with a foldable screen) that behaved like a secretary...probably about 130-140% of Siri's capability at the moment. This may be it. [youtube.com] Youtube is blocked at work so I can't be sure.
It relayed the content of the voice mail much like a secretary would,( "So and so called and said they'd be late for the meeting but they'd have the reports"), adjusted appointments, etc.
Step by Step...
Not Ready For Prime Time (Score:3)
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There's two parts to the Google Apple feature war tick tock attack and defend. (lets ignore the courts for now, just focus on the actual features)
The tick is a new feature. The tock is seeing what's useful and copy it. This tock will be useful in me ignoring voicemails for the most part. Even a bad transcription can be useful if you pretty much already know what the calls going to be for.
Because we need more voicemail (Score:1)
I would like my cellphone to be able to answer calls itself and play music while letting you know if my phone is on silent or not and ring at the same time.
I suppose you could set it up to do voicemail locally but who uses voicemail anyway?
Text or call back later. No voicemail!
Maybe I'm just paranoid... (Score:1)
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But.. Wouldn't this be "easier" for *pick your 3 character gov agency* to get 100% access to your data (as it would now be text) ?
The feds are already doing this to all calls, so no.
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Google did it (Score:4, Informative)
Isn't this basically Google Voice? Google records the message, transcribes it to text.
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And, if you set it up the way I do, sends you an e-mail, so if you are like me and use lots of e-mail (I hear the young-un's don't use it so much any more), you can easily reply with an e-mail.
Works great. Not sure what's so new about this.
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I've heard that despite Google's usually excellent voice recognition, there are complaints about the quality of Google's transcription service. I don't have it or use it myself.
But it sounds like this is more than just transcription, though that's the main crux of it. If Siri is answering for you, you can have her filter calls, transcribe voicemail, reject calls, etc. It's like a spam filter for your phone. (Not that I give my number out to people so they can phone much anymore. It's mostly just the bank or
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I'm not a Google Voice user, but I'd be surprised if at least some of the functionality wasn't already there. Some of those are "obvious" features. The only difference I can see is that Apple has a name for their assistant and Google does not.
In a few months we'll probably see a story where Microsoft is implementing a system where Cortana will take your voicemail and transcribe it.
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I am a Google Voice user and that functionality is there. I can mark a caller as spam and have them get a "This number is no longer in service" message in the future. Other Google Voice users marking callers as spam means that I'll often be notified that a spammer called me but my phone won't ring.
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I can do that on my iPhone without the voice component. I just block the number, and the phone rings forever on their side without my phone ever picking up.
Re:Google did it (Score:4, Interesting)
It is about 70-85% perfect with all callers, and about 97% perfect with people who regularly leave voicemails like family members. In either case it's good enough for me to know what's going on and if I need to call back in the next 15 minutes or not. If there are four sentences and it picks up 3 out of 4 nouns and verbs generally you can figure it out. And that's all I really care about. If I save 30 minutes per week not listening to voicemail, that's a huge win for me. Listening to voicemail ranks up there with getting a root canal for me.
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Love Google Voice. On their own most of the transcripts are laughably bad, but if you know who is calling and can imagine them speaking as you read the jumble of words you can usually understand it well enough. Can't remember the last time I had to actually listen to my voice mail.
Of course, knowing Apple they're going to claim that this is all a remarkable invention on their part. Just think, now it's Siri asking you to leave a message at the tone instead of some nameless generic voice. Innovation!
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Most voice-mails are of *terrible* quality (listen to them sometime - people mumble, etc.). But even still GV does a pretty good job. And it does a very good job with numbers. So it's great for that person who left you a long rambling voice-mail with their phone-number half-way through. Oh - and the phone number will be "clickable" in GV to boot.
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Vonage has been doing this as least as long... Apple is innovating by bringing this to cellphones and screwing carries out of voicemail minutes. Hey I don't care if they don't deserve credit if they bring us something users really want more power to them.
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Apple is innovating by bringing this to cellphones and screwing carries out of voicemail minutes.
Assuming anyone even cares about minutes any more, Google Voice does the same. When GV answers your phone and takes voicemail it doesn't use your cell minutes. And users of GV rarely dial in to listen to their voicemails either; the transcription is so good they just glance at the e-mail/SMS/Hangout message and get what they need to from it.
Apple may indeed be able to find some way to innovate in this space, but simply transcribing voicemails isn't going to do it.
Re:Google did it (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt the people living outside of the USA are going to care about that ... considering it's been 6 years since Google Voice launched and not even a subset of that functionality has made it over the Atlantic Ocean.
As far as we'll be concerned, SpinVox did it first and then (hopefully) Apple did it.
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Wife calls, gets Siri (Score:2, Funny)
Wife: Who was that answering your phone?
Me: That was Siri.
Wife: Who is Siri? Some hot new intern at your company?
Me: No, dear. Siri is a computer.
Wife: Sure she is. Why does she sound so sexy?
Me: I don't know. That's just how they programmed her.
Wife: Well, it had better be a computer. Or you are in big trouble.
Me (later, talking to girlfriend): Good move imitating Siri when my wife called last night. But the next time I'm in the shower, just let it go to voicemail.
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Wife: Siri find me a divorce lawyer.
Simple, but something I'd want. (Score:2)
I used to have Google voice. It made sense for a bit when I could have a second phone number mapped to my work phone. My work phone was a Blackberry, and as Google stopped working on the BlackBerry apps, it became less useful. Also we ended up having a SSL MITM appliance, and Google (wisely) does Cert Pinning, which broke the BlackBerry apps. I eventually dropped it and got a personal iPhone, but there were some things i missed.
Apple plugged some of the holes. Messages and Continuity allow me to type on
YouMail does this quite well... (Score:2)
I've been quite happy with YouMail for exactly this. It not just transcribes messages, but allows you to save the voice mails, not to mention ditch problem callers, either those on the robocall lists or people you don't want to deal with.
Plus, it can play a different voice mail greeting per caller if you want.
Of course, this works regardless of phone. If I'm using my iPhone, it works. I swapped the SIM to my HTC device? Still works. No platform lockdown.
My last 3 android phones have had this feature (Score:1)
Taking and transcribing voicemail? My last 3 phones, all Android and going back at least four years, have had this feature. Is Apple really that far behind, that this feature comes out as News, and what's more, implies that they invented it?
Christ, does anyone editing this site actually keep up with technology?
hello (Score:3)
This is John Doe's personal assistant Siri, see how nice it is to have a personal assistant which comes with the iPhone. from the number you are dialing it is apparent that you do not have an iPhone, you too can be hip/cool with an iPhone, buy an iPhone now. btw John is in the john taking a dump he thought it was way better to impress you with this knowledge than a casual unavailability notice. Buy an iPhone...you can leave a message after the BEEP and be sure to enunciate clearly for the transcription to text. BEEP
Google Voice and Skype have had this for years (Score:2)
About time...
Google Voice has been doing this for at least five years... Skype has been doing it for a year or two.
Hopefully it will work better than their initial maps implementation.
Android users missing the point (Score:2, Informative)
I know Google Voice has provided this for some time. I know you can use 3rd party service YouMail. You're missing the point.
Apple is pushing for user privacy. This means that the voicemail would be transcribed by Siri on *your* phone. Nobody else would have access to it to store it or scrape it or learn from it. Not in "the cloud".
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Reading comprehension fail?
From the summary (Not even the article, so this isn't a high bar): The iCloud service would then send users the text of that transcribed voicemail.
I guess "iCloud" is not in "the cloud"?
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I know Google Voice has provided this for some time. I know you can use 3rd party service YouMail. You're missing the point. Apple is pushing for user privacy. This means that the voicemail would be transcribed by Siri on *your* phone. Nobody else would have access to it to store it or scrape it or learn from it. Not in "the cloud".
What the hell are you talking about? Siri can't do jack-diddly without the internets. Won't even set a fricking timer or tell me what time it is. Every single thing Siri does is reported to and processed by the Apple mothership.
"User privacy" coming from a proprietor? How naive (Score:2)
Based on what evidence do you conclude that "Apple is pushing for user privacy"? Even if the software ran on one's tracker, the transcript or audio of any call could easily be uploaded wherever a proprietary software developer and distributor wants without the user's awareness or informed consent. Voice transcription is an important part of better indexing people's calls, which better serves multiple interests including targetted retrieval of the kind Snowden has told us organizations have been doing for so
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Erm... When you ask Siri a question, your voice gets recorded, the file gets sent over the Internet to Apple's servers, which do the voice recognition, and send the equivalent text back to your phone so it can act on it. It very much happens in "the cloud." Just like Android's voice recognition. (Wh
Already have it. (Score:2)
My carrier, T-Mobile already offers this for voicemails. Let me guess Apple will try to patent speech to text now?
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Apple: How about Global Thermonuclear Patent Warfare
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I can't wait! (Score:2)
Ample Text In Cervix Dad All Owls Siri 2 An Circles Ant Rans Ride Boys Males
Various accents (Score:2)