Did Apple swipe "Visual Voicemail," too?
By Ryan Block 
posted Jan 14th 2007 1:33AM
posted Jan 14th 2007 1:33AM
We're guessing not, but El Reg has a piece up squarely accusing Apple of another swipe, this time of the term "Visual Voicemail" to describe the iPhone's voicemail UI. Visual Voicemail, which is owned by Citrix and originally developed by Net6, has been around for years and may (or may not) be what's powering Apple and Cingular's solution for the common problem of having to wait through all the voicemail you don't want just to hear the voicemail you do. And "Visual Voicemail" is, in fact, capitalized on Apple's site, meaning if legit usage of the term or licensed software isn't in the cards, Apple could soon find itself in two simultaneous pots of hot water.
Actually Visual Voice mail is not patented by Citrix. It is actually an AT&T product/patent. I know since my brothers uncle was one of the lawyers that filed this like 5 years ago. Also, the Citrix product relates to VOIP solutions and regular POTS lines AT&Ts is for the cloud. If you think Iphone is dilluted Visual Voicemail is soaking wet.
If this is the case, then there's certainly no foul here. Apple is working with Cingular/AT&T on the iPhone, so if they were infringing on anything, we can be sure AT&T would have picked up on it by now. They're probably letting Apple use it free or for a reduced price in exchange for letting them get in on the iPhone action.
Your brother's uncle... as opposed to YOUR uncle?
If it's so freaking common, how comes I never seen it on any cellphone?
I don't see what's so special about this visual voicemail. I have an unlocked phone, the Samsung D900, and it has an "answering machine" feature. If someone calls you, and you don't answer within 20 seconds, the phone will automatically pick up the call, and play a message. The caller will then leave their message, and it's recorded as a file on the phone's memory. Afterwards you're able to choose the individual recordings from a list and play them in whatever order you choose.
I for one am not impressed by the Jobs RDF http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field
I always notice during his demos nobody is allowed to challenge him on anything like Steve...wouldn`t a simpler one-handed method of controlling your phone be voice control or speech to text? Or having someone in the audience point out that many of his features are already available on other phones as well as features that his phone doesn`t have such as GPS ala the Helio system or child locator on the Verizon service.Hey Steve...do you have MediaFlo or EVDO REV.A??? Hey Steve !! I would yell out from the audience...my Samsung phone (with VoiceSignal Technologies software)
has excellent speech-to-text and voice dialing right now and is much smaller,easier to hold , and can be used one-handed :) Hey Steve...what if my battery craps out and can`t be swapped out??? Hey Steve...didn`t you copy the LG phone???
No...I am not impressed by these demos :(
Hey, if you don't like the phone, can you just shut up? If you are not impressed and are not planning to buy the iPhone, just use your Samsung phone then. There's no need to rant in here.
Z: You say you don't see what's so special, but then you describe the same function you currently use. If you use it and like it, there's what's special.
Now if you meant unique, then yeah I guess in that sense it's not unique -- but it's also something not everyone has.
Im tired of apple being bully by all the opportunists, ( like those
that bought a ps3 just to sell it on ebay, i think that made the
price so high) i say apple should let cisco keep the iphone name, and dont give them money for it, they should change the name to macPhone or apple phone, i mean, last keynote when they introducced the macbook and macs, steve said that they planed to used the "mac" prefix in their products, i wouldnt mind it to be called MacPhone, and actually i like it more, can someone here make a poll about iPhone/macPhone/ApplePhone, name??
Anyone ever think they are doing all this on purpose to get some free press. A few months from now they will settle with Cisco or drop and change name, free press again on every news channel across the globe.
This if accurate could get them press in the tech world (here).
I guess Blackberry also swiped it:
http://www.comverse.com/press_releases.aspx?newsId=98
Oh, and Avaya as well:
http://www.traversenetworks.com/Solution/Soln_VVM.html
The funny thing is that Citrix has a deal with Cisco to use their software in their IP phones... hmm....
I guess this must be a case of the Teledex/Comwave type of trademark. (That is if Citrix is even claiming a trademark).
What's the big deal about seeing your voice mail messages in a list?
This feature has been available on Japanese phones for something like 10 years. It's not rocket science.
American customers should have had this feature years ago.
The Sony-Ericsson A5402S I got with AU/KDDI in 2003 had this feature using internal memory. Just one of the many features I lost after returning to Ireland.
Apple should just scrap the whole IPhone thing and turn this into a full on PMP.. it would be sweet as and cheap aswell.
Exactly...but when Steve demos something people automatically assume he invented it.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field
His demos are set up so nobody can challenge him on anything.
God, you guys are the worst pocket lawyers. Presumably, you are suggesting trademark infringement when you talk about "capitalized letters"? Did you bother to see if Citrix trademarked it, either at the USPTO or on their site/literature?
No. Well, maybe you should have.
and also: that is what apple is all about, they are 1upers, they reinvent!!!!, ant that is why we love them!, they never said that they have something never seen before, they just have something that is done right, as they did with the ipod; jukebox was already out, but was huge and with poor battery life, then the ipod came and the vision of the mp3 players was never the same, as well as the pc users, once they try the macs for a while they love them (i was a one)
and then the iPod 2.0 came out and it had phone capabilities added, and it sucked the life out of its battery in record time, and it had to be used with two hands and it was already "1upped" better in Japan 10 years ago, and ...
Basically Apple 1ups some inventions and 1downs most others. They dumb down technology so that dumb people who can't figure out two buttons only have one to push. Apple is a rip-off artist that would have nothing if it weren't for intelligent prexisting inventions and their ability to market. Their whole strategy builds around theft, which is fine if done legaly as in their case most of the time, but then they have the audacity to point fingers and complain about other companies doing the same thing.
I think it is a big mistake for apple to put ipod widescreen video, the phone and internet connectivity into one gadget. ipod widescreen video would have been a hit, forget the phone. Just a tip to the impatient Steve Jobs.
i guess we might have to test the damn phone and see for ourselves what kind of workability it has, or is it another brick to throw at people..:)
Let's not forget that Visual Voicemail was one of the things Apple quoted as the reason they chose Cingular/AT&T, for support on the network side of things. Doesn't look like anything to be caught up in.
I've had visual voicemail for "years" with my VOIP-PBX system.
But I still don't see the point. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you have a missed call from Bob and one from Mary and one voicemail that it's one of them.
The point is that it's a more intuitive way of dealing with voicemail. You don't get your email in one long text file, do you? When you bring your snail mail in from the mailbox, do you open everything from the top of the stack to the bottom in order? I don't. I open email and snail mail in order of importance, and I'd like to be able to do the same thing with voicemail.
You guys might want to tone it down a bit with your armchair lawyering. Stating that Apple might have 'swiped another' could open you up to legal action from Apple for defamation, and we all know how sue happy those Apple lawyers are.
I designed something identical to visual voicemail as part of a computer science class (human computer interactions) about a year ago. I don't think it took a genius to figure out voicemail needs a visual interface/menu. My group did up a physical prototype, a flash prototype, etc. Frankly, I'm just happy someone finally got a carrier to go along with it. I always figured there was at some point a conspiracy to get us to eat minutes checking voicemail, listening to needlessly long voicemail help ladies. Believe it or not, my current carrier doesn't even let you delete/save messages until the end. You can't skip to the end. It's *that* bad. You get an accidental call and you are stuck listening to 2 minutes of static. But hey, I justed moved to the US so hopefully Cingular is a little better :)
Actually, Visual Voicemail was a project with RIM (Blackberry) and Comverse. What may surprise you (or not) is that Visual Voicemail is implemented on the backend for pretty much every Voicemail system along US & Europe (Comverse Insight systems) and just has to be properly configured on the Vendor side.
The woodwork appears replete with armchair lawyers. Apple does not work in a vacuum. Others always come out to challenge something which they know will be another wild success. Such is life in the world of Apple.
I really hope that when Vista Home is released there are as many articles about what they swiped from Mac OS X and other companies along the way ;-) If this were an article about some patent/trademark that clearly described "Visual Voicemail" and/or used the name, it would be a different story (and the type of story you could post dozens of for Vista), but this is pretty much just an article posing a question. So far I've thought that your iPhone coverage was very matter-of-fact, but not anymore.
Finally companies we'll start seeing how bad patents have become. Too many and it's hindering development of new products. Too many common sense patents being issued. They should only be given for something truly new and unique, a new invention, as opposed to just a new way of doing the same old thing.
PATENT REFORM!!! No software Patents!
"Visual voicemail", by any name, seems like the most obvious improvement to come to cell phone voicemail. I'm surprised it took this long, and I'm surprised it took a company as innovative as Apple to figure it out.
For the hottest up and coming iPhone sites, check out http://www.iPhoneTopsites.com
Yep, those ass clowns over at Apple stole this one as well...are we really surprised?
I feel nauseated. I'm not normally one to rant but the day I her Apple being referred to as the company being BULLIED upon by oppurtunistic leeches is the day I know the world has gone insane. Apple has become what it perceived IBM to be in the '80s: a monopolizing, dominance seeking machine. I mean come on, you see Mr. Hypnotic Steve Jobs up there comparing the mouse and the Mac OS visual interface to the ability to pinch your pictures on an iPhone?! Next you'll have me believe Apple can sell neat (not "breakthrough", "reinventive", or "revolutionary")tech just because they put a glossy plastic shell on the outside and have some crooked-smiled wackjob in black spandex wetting his pants like a three year old over it. Wait a sec...
The only problem with the term "visual voicemail" is that it's not visual. It's textual. You only see the NAMES of the people who have called you, not their pictures. Nothing "visual" about it!
Lawsuits like this are the reasons we'll never see great products like the iPhone. Companies spend BILLIONS creating great products only to see themselves end up in court rooms defending themselves against competitors and or stupid companies that don't have the money to create these products, case in point RIM vs. NTP. Did RIM allegedly stealt their idea, who cares the Blackberry is a huge success and NTP wants to cash in on someone elses fortunes instead of creating their own.
Speaking of cashing in on other people's fortunes, while Apple has had it's share of revolutionary products, it also has released many devices whose funcionality was not new or unique, but they marketed them well and made them mainstream (a.k.a the 1G iPod).
If Apple wasn't sure they had their ducks in a row and hadn't decided to go on a publicity stunt rampage, you would not be hearing about this dispute. This case will most likely not end up in court, it's all a GAME.
And hey, if the law says you can go buy up a bunch of domain names on the web or hypothetical product names and then go cash in when somone stumbles into your net and wants to pay the toll, then by all means go right ahead and do just that. Is it cheap? Yes. Is it opportunistic cherry picking? Yes. Is it legal, clever, and a fast, easy way to make money? YES. It's the American Dream. And it is those very same laws that protect intellectual property not hinder it's growth, and if somone is clever enough to think that that the name "iPhone" might sell some day, hell don't they deserve any credit? Technically they had more foresight than Apple did.
Drawing an analogy to my first point, FDR didn't implement many new policies to save America from the Depression. In fact, most of the programs that were heralded as genious had almost identical versions created by Hoover before FDR even stepped into office. The difference? People hated Hoover and loved FDR. C'mon how can you not love his charisma? "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" That and good ol' Stevie J's legal team.
"The only problem with the term "visual voicemail" is that it's not visual. It's textual. You only see the NAMES of the people who have called you, not their pictures. Nothing "visual" about it!"
Hater-Ade! Since when is text non-visual? Since when is the visible world only "pictures"?
You might not like Apple or the iPhone, but let's not ignore the rational world to make some nonsensical point.
How innovative is it? Well, have you looked at the OpenMoko device? Gulp, it is a smartphone and it does not have a keyboard as well. It is based on the same idea. Steve said they patented everything about the iPhone. Good for them... If you are a geek developer and you have to choose between a fully proprietary solution and a fully open source device, what would you choose? They are both based on a Unix derivative... I would go with OpenMoko, where you can freely build any kind of application without paying a toll to Apple.
This is the corporate equivalent of cybersquatting. Companies trademark curious names that reek of hi-tech, with no corresponding technology behind the name. Then when some company actually releases a product of the same name that is actually accompanied by something that actually works and exists, the initial company that simply owns the name cries foul, and receives a large wad of cash for doing jack shit, except having some newbie advertising execs 20 years ago who came up with some nifty names while drinking lattes and snorting coke in their Fifth Avenue offices.
Oh, and by the way, who are these "newbie" advertising execs? More importantly, who is pwning them? Are you? Is Microsoft full of "newbies" too? Does my confronting you make me a "newbie"? I ceartainly hope not.
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Yeah, I "hate" Apple, and I have ever since I put myself through college slinging 6502 assembly on an Apple II and own a dual G5 and two iPods. It's a funny kind of "hate" that drives you to happily use a company's products for more than twenty years, not miss a keynote, etc.
But "visual" is simply the wrong word for what they're trying to say. Upon hearing the term, I expected something like CoverFlow, except with pictures of your contacts (and badges with message lengths) rather than CD covers. Instead, it's just e-mail except with voice messages, which is not to say it's not a welcome feature, but nobody called e-mail "visual mail."
Really, the proper term for mail you can browse before you open it is just "mail." That old voicemail systems were retarded does not imply we now need a totally new name for one that isn't. Clearly "visual voicemail" was chosen at least partially because it is alliterative without much regard for what it is.
BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA Who cares?
One of the features that sparked my interest was 'Visual Voicemail'. Looking into detail, I noticed that it wasn't what I hoped. I currently use a service called [URL="http://www.spinvox.com"]SpinVox[/URL] that will actually convert my voicemail to text and send it to my phone so I can read it. It really saves me the time and hassle of having to get a pen and paper out to jot down information like callback numbers. I'd say it runs about 90% accurate which is more then ample.
I took a free trial off their website and got hooked, I recommend this for all you like minded tech bods!
One of the features that sparked my interest was 'Visual Voicemail'. Looking into detail, I noticed that it wasn't what I hoped. I currently use a service called [URL="http://www.spinvox.com"]SpinVox[/URL] that will actually convert my voicemail to text and send it to my phone so I can read it. It really saves me the time and hassle of having to get a pen and paper out to jot down information like callback numbers. I'd say it runs about 90% accurate which is more then ample.
I took a free trial off their website and got hooked, I recommend this for all you like minded tech bods!
I for one think this 'visual voicemail' is overrated. I currently use a service called Spinvox that actually converts my voicemail and sends it to me as a text. it's quick, simple and handy. There is even a free trial on offer at www.spinvox.com. They are even offering a service that allows you to leave voice messages that convert to text and get posted on your personal blog. Very cool!