iPhone App review: HulloMail: Visual Voicemail for those not on O2

Were you one of those that left O2 to join another UK network, only to realise your beloved Visual Voicemail had deserted you? Yes, I feel your pain, I recently switched from O2 to 3 and realised whenever I pressed the voicemail button it started to dial voicemail?! I was thinking what is this feature phone nonsense?! A little research on Twitter and I was informed that O2 were the only network to support Visual Voicemail…shock horror!!

I decided to take a look on the AppStore, for a replacement, and would you believe it ‘there’s an App for that’ – meet HulloMail!

This handy little app provides visual voicemail functionality (NB NOT FULLY SUPPORTED ON T-MOBILE AND VIRGIN MOBILE), but goes a little further than the native phone app. There are two versions available in the AppStore, a paid version with an annual fee of £3.99 or for the students amongst you there is a free ad-supported version. Head on past the break to learn more about it.

The App fully supports push notifications so when you receive a voicemail or missed call it alerts you. Once you click on the notification you are greeted with the following screen:

A simple list of all voicemails AND missed calls. I find missed call push notifications an invaluable feature, for example if you are travelling on the tube and have no signal, when you go overground you will receive notifications of all missed calls. Another scenario is at work or at home, if you have poor signal, but you are connected to wi-fi then again you will receive the alerts immediately.

So once you click on a particular voicemail, the interface is similar to the native phone app, for those of you that are familiar with it (screenshot below). You have a call back and play option, as well as a ‘speaker’ button, allowing you to listen without holding the phone to your ear.

As you can see there is also a ‘reply’ option. Clicking on it brings you to a message-type screen:

Here you can reply to other HulloMail users with an aptly named ‘hullo’. These are voice recordings that do not need network coverage to be sent. Any internet connection will suffice. I haven’t ever used it, but I can certainly seeing it being more useful once more of my friends get it. You can send ‘hullo’s’ from the main screen by clicking on the microphone button in the bottom left of the screen. Refer to the earlier screenshot of the main screen to see what I mean.

Finally the settings menu provides some basic customisation, and is also where you activate the service:

To activate or deactivate click on the voicemail section and follow the instructions. Here you can also call voicemail if you ever require to do so, though I don’t see why you would ever need to! You can also create customised greetings within this section.

Other options such as security, auto-play and disabling push notifications are available if you have a look around.

I don’t have many complaints about the app, my only drawback would be the inability to delete all messages and missed calls at once. Instead you have to manually do this, and if you have a long list this can be tedious. However I am sure this will be included in a future update at some point.

Other than that minor gripe, I really can’t think of any drawbacks. It’s very slick and does exactly what it says on the tin. The additional benefits of the paid version is that it is of course ad free, but you do get some additional features:

1) Increased voicemail length unto 5 minutes (Not entirely sure how long free version allows you, I will clarify and update)

2) Individual greetings – this gives you the option to customise greetings for individual contacts.

For those of you on supported networks, this app is must, no doubt about it. Hit up the source link to get downloading on iTunes. Any comments, feel free to leave them in the box below!

Download Link: iTunes