Voice Mail Icon
rjsavini
Newbie

Please let me know if the only way to have the voice mail icon have the number of voice mails received is paying $2.99/ month for VVM. I downloaded the Verizon Voice Mail app and installed it, but no number comes up on the icon as it does for email. Please help.

0 Likes
Re: Voice Mail Icon
WCMack
Specialist - Level 1

This will not completely answer your question, but I do subsribe to Verizon Visual VoiceMail and I DO see a number in the upper right corner of the VoiceMail icon on the home screen when I have a voicemail to which I haven't listened.  Once I listen to it, the number either reduces by one or disappears (if no other message remain to which I have not listened).

0 Likes
Re: Voice Mail Icon
Not applicable

rjsavini wrote:

Please let me know if the only way to have the voice mail icon have the number of voice mails received is paying $2.99/ month for VVM. I downloaded the Verizon Voice Mail app and installed it, but no number comes up on the icon as it does for email. Please help.


Hi there!

 

It may not be the only way, but it is a feature of the Visual Voicemail application we provide. Android doesn't provide it as part of their platform.

 

Read more about the features of Visual Voicemail here.

 

Have a great day!

0 Likes
Re: Voice Mail Icon
odoggg
Enthusiast - Level 2

Don't pay for Verizon's Visual Voicemail. It is a rip off.

 

You have an android phone that has Google's voicemail services integrated.

 

Open the preinstalled application called "Voice" and set up voicemail using the gmail account you set up on your phone.

 

All your voicemails will be redirected to Google's service instead of Verizon.

 

It it completely free, you get visual voicemail and on top of that you get transcriptions of those messages that show up in your notification area. Transcriptions are accurate enough that you understand the content without having to listen to the message.

 

Other cool features are:

 

Your mailbox will never be full (not never but very very unlikely due to Google providing gigabytes of space to your account)

 

You can access your voicemails through the web browser by going to google.com/voice

 

You can set up different groups like family, coworkers, etc. with your google contacts and different groups can hear different voicemail welcome messages (Can even be personalized such as a specific message for you spouse)

 

You can also receive e-mail notifications of the new messages with their transcriptions.

 

You can forward messages to other people and they can see the transcription and also listen to the message by clicking on the play link in the email.

0 Likes
Re: Voice Mail Icon
WCMack
Specialist - Level 1

Dear odoggg,

 

I found in trying to follow your directions that the setup was not that easy.  First, the Voice app was not pre-installed, but at least it can be found in the Android Market.  Second, when I tried to set it up on the phone, I got a message that Verizon did not support phone setup.  So I went to my computer and clicked on account > account settings, and selected Voice from the menu of offerings from Google.  There followed several steps to set the service up.

 

I also added the app on the phone, and tested it by calling my Charge from my home phone and leaving a message.  The message was indeed recorded and was shown in Google Voice on the Charge, but the entry indicated "unable to transcribe message", so there was not associated text message.

 

I have used Google Voice in the past, and found that the transcription then was very buggy and led to some frustrating, and some hilarious, "translations" of what people actually said.

 

But the bottom line, it's free, not $2.99 a month.

 

Good call!

0 Likes
Re: Voice Mail Icon
odoggg
Enthusiast - Level 2

Hi,

 

There is currently a bug in the Voice app on android, if the message is longer than 30 seconds, it keeps showing the message "unable to transcribe". (However, if you delete an older message from the list, the transcription for the last one magically appears) For messages that are shorter than 30 seconds, I have not had any problems.

 

I also set my google voice account (through the web interface) to send me the messages as e-mails as well. So if I get a message that is longer than 30 seconds, I can always check my e-mail for the transcription.

 

The transcriptions are not a hundred percent accurate yet, but in my experience, they are accurate enough that you understand what it is about. For instance if I'm in a meeting and my wife leaves me a voice mail, I can tell whether it's important or not by just glancing at the transcription. I don't have to leave the meeting to listen to the message. Google voice also shows different shades in the transcription. For instance the words that are easily recognized by the software will appear bold, whereas the ones that are questionable appear lighter.

 

I agree that the setup was not as simple as it could or should have been. It required the use of a computer for a couple of steps. But overall it's not too complcated and as long as you follow their directions it's fine.

 

 

Oh and sorry that I wrote the voice app was preinstalled. I did this on so many phones (for friends and family) that I forget which ones come with it. I thought my charge had it on there. But I guess you have to download it from the market.

0 Likes
Re: Voice Mail Icon
WCMack
Specialist - Level 1

Dear odoggg,

 

No worries.  I am using the Google Voice app and it's pretty good.  As you say, translation is not perfect, but good enough to give you the general idea.

0 Likes
Re: Voice Mail Icon
JoeNe
Contributor - Level 2

The other thing not mentioned here is that if you are using any other launcher other than TW you will not get a number on the VM icon showing message count.  I use GO Launcher and found that I will get a notification in the notification bar on top, but nothing on the VM icon.  I do subscribe to VVM and have a GV account.  I will probably be dropping VVM soon and going back to GV.  I was having some issues with GV that was probably my fault.

 

 

0 Likes
Re: Voice Mail Icon
JoeNe
Contributor - Level 2

Thanks for posting this, :smileyhappy:  It reminded me to make the switch back to GV!  Done and working properly.

0 Likes