Apple in iOS 17 is introducing a new real-time voicemail feature that’s designed to give you a transcript of the message the person left when they spoke, so you can choose to pick up the phone if it’s important.
Live Voicemail is functional in developer and public beta, and some iPhone users wonder if the way the feature is set up is confusing.
With the Live Voicemail feature enabled, the default voicemail message used in iOS 16 has changed. If you don’t have a custom-created voicemail message, the default ‘iOS 17’ voicemail recording prompts callers to give their reason for calling after the tone sounds and says “Your caller may be calling”. If you have a custom message in ‘iOS 16’, there will be no change, so this will affect people using the default voicemail greeting feature.
The word “may pick up” seems to confuse some calling iPhone owners with iOS 17 installed. Two separate reddit threads Feature complaints from Reddit users Those who received calls from people who didn’t understand Apple’s messaging. From Reddit:
I got a voicemail. Then they sent a message saying my phone is not working. The current greeting seems to confuse people when they get to live voicemail, especially since I often don’t have my phone with me.
Many other Reddit users have the same problem, receiving confusing texts from people or strange voicemail messages featuring dead air. We are here MacRumors Have experienced the same problem. On two occasions, incoming callers heard the message, said their name, and then waited to pick up the phone instead of leaving a voicemail.
It’s not yet clear if Apple plans to make any changes to the default Live Voicemail messaging before iOS 17′ launches this fall. There is an option to customize a voicemail by going to Phone > Voicemail > Greeting > Custom and you can record your own message so that can be solved.
If you have iOS 17′ beta and are experiencing issues with Live Voicemail and don’t want to create a custom voicemail message, you can disable the feature by opening the Settings app, going to the Phone section, and tapping on Live Voicemail. option, toggle it off.