If you’re like most people, you probably use voice recognition software to dictate text messages and emails on your iPhone or iPad. But if you want to transcribe voicemails into text on iOS 10, there are a few things you need to know. First, the app has a new feature called “Text to Speech.” This feature allows you to dictate text messages and emails in a natural language interface. So if you have a conversation with someone and they ask for a sentence about the weather, for example, Text to Speech will translate that sentence into text so that it can be read by someone else. Second, there are some other new features in iOS 10 that might help with transcription. For example, the app now supports multiple voices when transcribing voicemails. This means that if one person is talking on the phone and another person is transcribing the message, both voices will be heard in the end product. Additionally, the app now supports emoji characters in text transcription. So if someone sends an emoji message while they’re talking on the phone, Text to Speech will automatically convert that into text so that it can be read by others.
iOS has had a visual voicemail menu since the beginning, allowing you to browse and listen to voicemails without calling a number. Now, iOS 10 enhances visual voicemail by transcribing them, so you can read your voicemails too.
NOTE: Voicemail transcription is available on iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, and iPhone SE with Siri language set to English (United States or Canada). Your carrier also needs to support visual voicemail for voicemail transcription to work.
Voicemail transcription will only apply to voicemail messages you receive after updating to iOS 10. Previous voicemails will say “Transcription not available”.
When someone leaves you a message, open the Voicemail app and tap on the new voicemail.
The audio message starts playing automatically, and, if the person just left you the message, a “Transcribing” message displays while the message is being transcribed.
Once the message is transcribed, it displays in that voicemail item. Note that voicemail transcription is not always perfect. It may misunderstand some words and leave some words out. But you’ll usually have an idea of what the caller wanted to get across.
Voicemail transcription is still considered a beta feature, so you can give feedback about the usefulness of the transcription. To do so, tap either “useful” or “not useful” on the question, “Was this transcription useful or not useful?”.
RELATED: How to Share or Save a Voicemail on an iPhone
Just as you can share or save the audio from a voicemail, you can also share or save the voicemail transcription. Select the transcription text (or any part of it) and then tap “Share” on the popup that displays.
Voicemail transcription is also useful for telling at a glance the difference between urgent calls and calls from solicitors or telemarketers or spam calls.
