There is an obvious need and advantage to having your carrier handle your voicemail.  Here in 2012 we still have terrible spottiness in our cell coverage.  Voicemail allows us to provide a message to the caller we miss and also to take the message from the caller if they decide to leave one.  That’s great.  I would say without a doubt we will always want to use the carriers, freely provided voicemail, but… I think we should also have another option.  An option, provided by a simple app, that would have tremendous novelty value, and may prove invaluable in certain situations.

Voicemail on your phone.  The call comes in.  We see it, but don’t want to answer just then, or maybe we don’t want to answer that person at all.  Apples IOS 6.1 is going to allow for customizable voicemail with the carrier, so we can have specific messages for specific people, which certainly adds value, but doesn’t adapt to your specific situation at the time.  What if you could push a button, and the phone would answer for you, take the message, and store it all on your phone?  What if you could just easily retain messages this way as mp3 files on your phone?  Have you ever tried to save that certain message of your baby’s first voicemail or perhaps a special birthday message from a group of friends?  Proven the value yet?  What if you could put that caller on speaker whilst they left the message?

OK, now if you have your mind around the possibilities of this device, what if you could screen a call to send the person to voicemail, and then when you hear them perhaps confess their undying love, you have the ability to cut in and pick up the call.

Yep, sometimes it’s good to go backwards in time to take a concept forward.  The technology exists to make this a reality today, it’s just a matter of someone writing the app.  I’m in on this one for 500.