I came to a crossroads this month when AT&T announced their unlimited voice and data package for $99. At that price I could suddenly justify getting an iPhone and stomach the coverage that may not be as extensive as Verizon in my neck of the woods (so far I think AT&T’s coverage is great, by the way). And for the record, I’ve been a fan of Verizon since before they were called Verizon around here. And I’ve had an account with them in one form or another for over ten years. I’m still a fan, but for now I needed an iPhone which requires a switch to AT&T.

There was one little problem. I’ve had the same number for about six years which means that I’ve also had the same voicemail account for that time. And in my voicemail box there are messages that I would like to keep for various reasons. Some for fun and some for business. So before switching carriers, I needed to figure out a way to move those voicemail messages to some sort of archive. Otherwise they’d be lost in the mobile phone abyss…

Here’s how I copied my Verizon voicemail messages to my Mac. First, I connected the blackberry headphone-jack (audio out) to the microphone-jack (audio in) on my Mac via a simple accessory cable. Then I launched a program that records audio (Garage Band in this case). Then I dialed up my voicemail and played the messages while the Garage Band program recorded it. It worked great. I realize that I could have played my messages on speaker phone and recorded them into some other device with a microphone. But, that method would introduce noise and degradation to each message. Connecting the Blackberry to the Mac via audio cable eliminated the potential for extraneous noise on the recording!

So now I have my iPhone and I’ve saved the precious little voicemails from when my kids were learning to talk. I’m saving money on my mobile costs, and I’m experiencing all the fun and efficiencies that the iPhone offers. I’m happy about that!

Cheers!
Matt Sweet
Marketing / Technology Integration
Ticor Title