If a voice mail doesn't have a voice, does it still make a sound?
It's a philosophical question about Apple's new visual voice mail you might ponder. That is, if you weren't already too busy pondering just what the heck your last caller was trying to tell you via visual voice mail.
If you bought one of the new iPhone 7's or recently updated your existing phone to the new operating system (iOS 10), you will find that there is a new voice-mail feature.
Or voice-mail foible.
I didn't realize I had a beta version of voice-mail transcription until my dad (the Yankee I've written about who loves ketchup -- Heinz ketchup -- on everything, including barbecue; he sends his regards!) called the day after I received my iPhone 7 Plus.
He phoned while I was at a noisy restaurant, so I let the voice mail pick up. Unlike the rest of my friends and relations who just hang up (after all, the phone reports who calls) or follow up with a text, my father loves to leave voice mail. The lengthier the message, the better.
"Hi Jenny, this is Dad," he begins each voice-mail message. As if the phone doesn't tell me who called. As if he sounds like anyone but my Heinz-ketchup-loving-Yankee father. And as if anybody else has called me "Jenny" since age 9.
Upon leaving the restaurant, I picked up the phone (ooh, this one wakes when picked up without a button being pressed!) to hear his message. Only I didn't have to hear it. I could read it. Sort of.
His voice mail was accompanied by a written-out version under the heading "Transcription Beta." Here's how it started.
Hi John this is dad
He forgot my gender. He forgot my name. And, maybe most unforgivable, he forgot to punctuate.
I worried my Heinz-ketchup-loving-Yankee father had been kidnapped. But then I remembered what he told his mother, my obsessive-compulsive Yankee grandmother, Kit, who insisted Dad check and re-check and re-check her stateroom door lock when we went on a family cruise. "Someone might steal me," she rationalized in her Edith Bunker voice, with a cackle. "Oh, they'd bring you right back," he snapped back, not really joking.
"They," I reasoned, would bring my father right back too.
I continued reading the message transcription and feared Dad might have suffered a stroke. Or expired ketchup. Here is the exact message as translated:
Hi John this is dad for some reason my telephone has lost your address it has your old address and I'm not supposed to rain you have a new could you give me a call on Monday ... know what what's in the new aggressive please thank you bye-bye ...
Supposed to rain you? Know what what's? The new aggressive? Clearly he'd had a stroke and been stolen by kidnappers -- aggressive ones!
I listened to the audio of his message.
Hey Jenny, this is Dad. For some reason my telephone has lost your address. It has your old address and not the (street name here) address. Could you give me a call and let me know what the new address is, please? Thank you. Bye-bye.
Whew. No kidnappers. No stroke. And he still knew what's what (or "what what's" or whatever). He knew I was female. He knew my name. He knew I'd moved in the last year.
That said, my iPhone's video voice mail didn't know a whole lot. Following the jumbled transcribed message, it asked, "Was this transcription useful or not useful?"
John Christman would have to say this is "not useful."
Send a Dear John email:
jchristman@arkansasonline.com
What's in a Dame is a smirk at pop culture. You can hear Jennifer on Little Rock's KURB-FM, B98.5 (B98.com), from 5:30-9 a.m. Monday through Friday.
Style on 09/27/2016