The Live Voicemail feature coming to iOS 17 will bring back call screening, lost since the death of the answering machine.
Technology moves us forwards, and there are rarely ways that technology can seem like a step back. I’m not sold on replacing the knobs in my car with a touchscreen, for instance, but I could be wrong. I am sure that our current voicemail, even Apple’s visual voicemail, is a step backwards from the wondrous days of the answering machine. Thankfully, Live Voicemail coming in iOS 17 will introduce a new generation to the glory of The Machine.
I say The Machine because that is what we called it. When you get home, you check The Machine. It was our “You’ve got mail” before AOL or email. We actually GOT mail in our mailbox from real humans we enjoy, but we never rushed to the mailbox the way we rushed to check “The Machine.”
The Machine would flash if there was a message, that’s how you knew if you were well-liked. In those days, phone calls did not come entirely from car warranty scams. In fact, most of the time if the phone rang, there was a purpose behind the call. It wasn’t nothing. It was always something.
When the answering machine was popularized, it meant we never missed something. It was the first time that technology solved a FOMO issue, decades before Millenials would invent the fear of missing out.
That benefit of the answering machine never vanished, and now tiny red bubbles over app icons are the smartphone version of the answering machine light flashing. You can tell how compelling this is because every single app demands its own red bubble. Everything has a flashing light. Everything has something important to say.Call screening disappeared with the answering machine
There was another benefit of answering machines that disappeared, and that is call screening. When someone called your house, you could listen while they talked to The Machine. You didn’t have to listen, but your caller often assumed that you were listening, and might plead with your machine.
In fact, the answering machine led to a genre of communication that has disappeared. We don’t care much what our outgoing voicemail message says about us now, but when we had answering machines, and when our caller knew that we could be screening the call and were not just away from home, a new subtext emerged.
