Apple along with the Rockstar consortium has been awarded a new patent (No. 8,666,034) called “Audio call screening for hosted voicemail systems” by the USPTO which could bring answering machine like functionality to iPhones.
So what this basically means is that users can screen calls when they let it go to voicemail or even pick up and take over as the person on the other end is leaving the message. Only the loud speaker of the phone will be activated during call screening and the microphone will be off by default, but it can be switched on midway through the voicemail if it is an important call.
The patent proposes a very simple solution. Whenever an incoming call goes to voicemail, which could be a hosted service offered by the carrier, the device will setup a conference between the voicemail system, the user and the incoming call, thus allowing a user to listen to the call in real time. This technology could be rolled out with a software update.
The user can choose to send all calls to the voicemail service or calls can be routed to the hosted voicemail service when the user does not answer, which could be controlled using a switch or a system toggle.
This patent was originally filed in 2003 and Apple accredits Samuel H. Christie as the person behind this idea. The patent reminds me of the feature that has been available in answering machines for landlines. It allows users to effectively filter out calls by letting them go to voicemail and monitor them in real time. Even with caller ID, there are times when you want to speak to the caller depending on what they want to talk about, so such a feature could come in handy in such situations as well.
Now that I think about it, it’s strange that such a feature hasn’t been available on mobile phones. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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