iPhone owners unlock free upgrade today to let you send ‘video voicemails’ – but there’s an even better new perk

APPLE has released a major update for millions of iPhones with two very clever voicemail tricks.

They solve some of the biggest problems with voicemail and are completely free.

The new characteristics are available for your iPhone starting today as part of the new iOS 17 update.

Video voicemails

Typically, when you FaceTime someone and they don’t respond, you’re stuck.

The important moment you wanted to share is lost – and that’s a real shame.

That’s why Apple created video messaging for FaceTime.

So if you call someone who doesn’t answer on FaceTime, you can leave them a video message that they can watch later.

It’s a lot like a voicemail, except you leave a video clip instead of an audio recording.

Perhaps an even more exciting feature is Live Voicemail.

This allows you to see a real-time transcription of a voicemail someone leaves.

This is a great trick because it allows you to get an idea of what a caller wants before you answer the call.

This is particularly useful when someone is calling from an unknown number.

Better yet, you can answer the call while the caller leaves their message.

It’s also useful that if a caller is identified as spam by your cell phone provider, it won’t show up as a live voicemail.

Instead, the call is immediately rejected.

The entire process is managed on your device and not in the cloud and should therefore be safe and secure.

This means you don’t have to feel pressured to answer a call right away.

And it saves you from listening to endless voicemails because you can simply read their contents instead.

Both new features require iOS 17.

The software update went live on Monday, September 18th.

You need to install it by going to Settings > General > Software Update.

Unfortunately not all iPhones Models can install iOS 17.

Here is the full list of devices supported by iOS 17:

If you don’t have one of these iPhone models, you’ll need to upgrade to a newer device to get iOS 17 – and the two voicemail tricks as an extension.