Visual voicemail is random access

Random access

In computer science, random access is the ability to access an element at an arbitrary position in a sequence in equal time, independent of sequence size. The position is arbitrary in the sense that it is unpredictable, thus the use of the term "random" in "random access"...

 voicemail with a visual interface. Such an interface presents a list of messages for playback and may include a transcript of each message. In recent months, several companies in the telecommunication

Telecommunication

Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

s space have integrated a visual element into their voicemail services. The most prominent usage of this technology is found in Apple's iPhone

IPhone

The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

, Samsung

Samsung

The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...

's Instinct

Samsung Instinct

The Samsung Instinct was an Internet-enabled phone designed and marketed by Samsung Mobile. It uses a Haptic touchscreen interface, and three touchscreen buttons...

 and the BlackBerry Storm and Torch.

Other phone system vendors are now also offering these features for internal voicemail users. This complements the basic voicemail to e-mail or via SMS to mobile devices which is becoming ubiquitous in that it allows better management of voicemail messages without clogging up the user's inbox and saves time filtering spam.

One way to use visual voicemail is via mobile client applications. T-Mobile

T-Mobile

T-Mobile International AG is a German-based holding company for Deutsche Telekom AG's various mobile communications subsidiaries outside Germany. Based in Bonn, Germany, its subsidiaries operate GSM and UMTS-based cellular networks in Europe, the United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...

 International launched the service as Mobilbox Pro in August 2009 for a range of Symbian S60

S60 (software platform)

The S60 Platform is a software platform for mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. It was created by Nokia, who made the platform open source and contributed it to the Symbian Foundation. S60 has been used by mobile device manufacturers including Siemens mobile, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic...

 devices with announcement to support further phones including Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...

 and Android devices.

In April 2009, OMTP created a Technical Recommendation for an open and standardised visual voice mail (VVM) interface protocol which VVM clients may use to interact with a voicemail server. The key functions of this interface are the support of message retrieval, message upload, VVM management, greeting management and provisioning. The document intention is to ensure that standard functionality of voice mail servers may be accessed through a range of VVM clients via the defined interface. This approach leaves scope for operators/carriers and vendors to differentiate their products.

In 2010, Google Voice

Google voice

Search by voice is a branded name for a technology to "search by voice on your [digital device]", such as a mobile phone or PC, i.e. have the device search for data upon entering information on what to search into the device by speaking....

 became available without invitation. As a voicemail application on Google's Android platform, it can assume control of the visual voicemail functionality in place of a carrier's own application.