Patent ID: 8498625

Claim:
A method for enabling voicemail features locally at a phone coupled to a carrier network, comprising: receiving at the phone a phone call from a caller; in response to receiving the phone call from the caller, determining whether the caller is an identifiable or known caller; intercepting at the phone the received phone call, wherein the intercepting occurs before the phone call is directed to the carrier voicemail system; automatically, without user intervention, sending a prerecorded message from the mobile phone to the caller after a configurable time-delay has elapsed; automatically, without user intervention, recording an incoming audio message from the caller; transcribing the recorded audio message, the transcribing including generating, using the recorded audio message, a text transcription and text metadata relating to one or more playback features at the phone; annotating the recorded audio message with the text transcription and text metadata, wherein at least a portion of the audio message is associated with the text transcription and text metadata; and storing the recorded audio message annotated with the text transcription and the text metadata at a local data store of the phone, independent of the carrier voicemail system, wherein the recorded audio message is available to an application with voicemail functionality executable by the phone.