CallWave: Get iPhone-like Visual Voicemail With ANY Phone!

During Steve Jobs’s much-hyped demonstration of the iPhone, one of the features which people found most exciting was Visual Voicemail. According to Apple’s website,

An industry first, Visual Voicemail allows you to go directly to any of your messages without listening to the prior messages. So you can quickly select the messages that are most important to you.

It’s a neat idea and one which will probably push many people to consider the iPhone once it is available. But, what if, like me, you’re impatient? Well, you’re in luck, because you can have the same feature now, for free, thanks to CallWave.

CallWave is a company that provides a bunch of telephony products targeted mostly at business users. But, one of their services, which they offer for free, is Visual Voicemail. The setup is simple: You visit that link and download their dashboard widget (Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger required) then create a free account via their website. The service works with most US carriers including Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile, and over 30 others using any cell phone, but you do need to be in the US. Once your account is created, you follow their simple instructions to replace your carrier’s voicemail with their service. I use T-Mobile and can’t notice any difference.

Then, whenever you receive a voicemail, you’re notified via Text Message to your cell phone and you can listen in the usual manner by dialing in. Or you can visit the CallWave website to listen or, coolest of all, you can use the Dashboard Widget to listen to your email from your Mac. I work in a room without cell service and this widget is a godsend. Try it out… it’s a great way to access your voicemail and will tide you over until mid-June when the iPhone is released!