iOS 5 Will Transcribe Your Voicemail to Text

Following the news that Apple is partnering with Naunce for voice integration in iOS 5, we’ve heard from an inside source at Apple that iOS 5 will allow you to read your voicemails. Google Voice has offered voicemail transcription for quite some time, and, according to our anonymous source, Apple is hard at work to implement this type of service into iOS 5.

More cloud-based features are rumored to debut in Apple’s next major release of iOS when the software is previewed at WWDC this June. A more Google-esque approach to cloud services makes sense if Apple wants to stay competitive in the cloud space. Voicemail transcription would be one more feature to beef up Apple’s cloud offerings…

Take this with a huge grain of salt, but our tipster (who appears to work at Apple) has informed us that Apple is indeed hard at work on voice integration, and voicemail transcription is part of the package in iOS 5.

“I don’t know if we’re buying Nuance, but I can tell you we’re hard at work on voice integration. I know iOS 5 will both let you listen to and read your voicemails (ala Google Voice).”

In Google Voice, you can sign up to get texts and emails when you receive a voicemail. We’ve covered some popular Google Voice apps that help you interface with the VoIP service.

Voicemail transcription is a nice idea, but it has yet to be implemented very effectively. Google Voice does a decent job at translating voicemails to text, but there’s plenty of room for improvement. Apple and Nuance could be just the team to make that happen.

We have absolutely no idea what this sort of feature would look like in iOS 5, or if transcription will be sent through text and/or email. We just thought this tip was worth sharing.

Apple’s revamp of MobileMe will definitely play into all of this, and we’re curious to see what is revealed at WWDC next month.

What about you? Would you like to have native voicemail transcription on the iPhone?