Apple reportedly to have Siri transcribe voicemail messages

Apple is testing a voicemail service which uses Siri to answer the calls and transcribe voicemail messages, while Apple's iCloud service will then send the text of the transcribed voicemail to the user, Business Insider reported, citing sources.

The new service is being prepared for launch in 2016.

When someone using iCloud Voicemail is unable to take a call, Siri will answer instead of letting the call go to a standard digital audio recorder, according to Business Insider’s sources.

iCloud Voicemail can relay information about where the users are and why they cannot pick up the phone. Siri will transcribe any incoming voicemails, just like it does with anything else users say to it. Apple sends voice data to company servers, where Siri converts the words spoken into text. iCloud Voicemail will presumably function in the same way, sending the raw voicemails to Apple, and Siri will then transcribe them and make them available on the users' iPhones.