Windows Phone 7.5 to include Visual Voicemail?

By Tom Warren, on 10th May 11 9:30 pm with 19 Comments

Microsoft is planning to include Visual Voicemail in Windows Phone 7.5, according to one anonymous leakster.

The suggestion comes from the Twitter account @WindowsPhone8. The account has previously announced Mango developer features shortly before Microsoft’s official MIX11 conference in April.

Visual Voicemail in Windows Phone 7.5?

Visual Voicemail is currently available natively on Apple’s iPhone devices and through third-party applications on Google’s Android devices. The feature allows users to listen to voicemails without having to dial a special voicemail service. Visual Voicemail is particularly useful for seeing who has left you messages and being able to rewind or fast forward them easily.

Microsoft is currently hard at work on “Mango”, its next major release of Windows Phone. Microsoft has promised to ship “Mango” later in the year. “Mango” is currently in the early beta stages at Microsoft, built as 7.1 currently. The company revealed a number of new features in February that will ship as part of its Windows Phone point release later this year. Nokia is also reportedly waiting for the next release of Windows Phone before it unveils its first Windows Phone device.

“Mango” currently contains multitasking, Internet Explorer 9 mobile and Twitter integration. Microsoft unveiled a number of key developer enhancements at its MIX11 conference earlier this month. Developers will have access to the Motion Sensor library and the camera, enabling augmented reality experiences. Phone integration has also been greatly improved for developers wanting to do more with their apps. The Live Tiles functionality has been expanded to give developers more flexibility and engage with their customers better.

Microsoft is expected to reveal a number of key features for Windows Phone 7.5 at a special preview event on May 24.

  • http://www.searingarrow.com AlienSix

    Need……an Windows Phone……NOW!

    • Msisdying

      Mango. So don’t worry, you’ve got lots of time. Or you could have bought an iPhone and already had this.

    • Seb

      Maybe there are (crazy?) people who DON’T want to get an iPhone..

    • Anonymous

      I don’t want an iPhone (I’m not crazy). I previously owned an iPod Touch 2nd gen but got bored. Now with Windows Phone it’s a new world ;) and I’m loving it

    • http://doctorwhofan98.wordpress.com/ doctorwhofan98

      @9cf0bc270cb142a7e500c9d0dfe0c9b2:disqus Both my parents have got iPhones (my Dad an iPhone 4 and my Mum an iPhone 3G) and they really aren’t all that amazing. Windows Phone is great… and you can have Hotmail HTTPS turned on and still use the email app!! :-)

    • Tonious

      I don’t, won’t, nor need an iphone. Period! You can count me out.

  • Stephen James

    Wouldn’t this suggest a front facing camera which initial devices don’t have?

    • http://www.winrumors.com Tom W

      No that’s slightly different. Visual Voicemail is the ability to visually control your voicemail rather than dialing a number.

    • Stephen James

      Ok my bad. But I do think you should be able to leave video messages for people ;)

    • Stephen James

      Ok my bad. But I do think you should be able to leave video messages for people ;)

    • http://www.aiowiki.com/wiki/User:Reddo Reddo

      that’s what i thought it was too, when i saw the title

    • GP007

      It’s a different topic but now that MS has bought Skype and we know it’s coming to WP since MiX new Mango devices should have a front facing camera. I pretty much think it’s a given at this point.

  • http://twitter.com/MikeInBA mike g

    One of those things i was suprised to find out WP7 didnt have out of the box. Does android have VVM?

    • BI1000

      they have google voice although it offers a lot of additional services the transcription is poor, but everything else about the service is quite good.

  • http://twitter.com/MikeInBA mike g

    One of those things i was suprised to find out WP7 didnt have out of the box. Does android have VVM?

  • ynotm

    files in the WP7 (7.0) ROM reference visual voicemail, so this isn’t too surprising.

  • Morgan Wisbey

    Visual voicemail essentially is instead of seeing that you have 1 voicemail and then dialing a number to retreive it, you now will have a list of voicemails with the sender’s name. Visual VM is called this because you actually see all the messages you have and who left them. Nothing to do with video conferencing. What this gives you is instead of having to listen to the entire stream of VM at once, you can simply click on the name of the sender and listen to the messages in the order you choose. Fast forwarding and rewinding is easy as well as deleting individual messages. The files are saved locally on your phone so you hear them instantly like a music file instead of waiting for the phone to dial, connect, and listen to the silly message telling you how many messages you have. iPhone has this and is one feature I have missed dearly. As a side note, after many years of being trained by traditional VM, I found myself holding the phone up to my ear for 10 or so seconds waiting for the deletion instruction message to let me know I heard the whole message. With visual VM you don’t get this message as you simply click the next message to listen to it. This is AWESOME news!

  • http://www.facebook.com/GriffinCoulter Griffin Coulter

    you know what feature i would really like to have. the ability to retrieve xbox live messages both voice and text based through the xbox live hub on your phone. that would be cool.

    • GP007

      I expect lots of nice changes and new features in the Xbox hub. It already “looks” different theme wise in the Alpha builds of Mango so I expect a deeper integration. Also with adding sockets finally I think we might be in for real-time multiplayer over Live.

      I can’t wait for the day we can have the ability to play a game vs people on the phone or 360 or start a game on one and finish it on the other etc. Of course this depends on the type of game and controls but I’ll leave those details up to game devs.