> iOS now supports live voicemails. Functionally equivalent to call screening, except a slightly different prompt.

Not really. For one, the caller knows that there's someone on the other end reading it live, as opposed to live voicemail where you don't know whether your message will be seen immediately or whenever the other person decides to check their voicemails. Also call screening allows you to prompt follow up questions which you can't do with live voicemail.

I'll agree you get more features with the Google implementation, however I'm not sure it meaningfully equates to a different experience.

Unless you're worried nobody will leave a voicemail (which, I think will change over time as folks know the functionality exists), the ability to pick up if you don't recognize the number... or if someone you do know has something that's extremely urgent. Neither are navigated substanially better with the prompts Google offers.

>Unless you're worried nobody will leave a voicemail (which, I think will change over time as folks know the functionality exists),

Situation today: I get a voicemail prompt. If I leave a message it could be read anywhere immediately after I leave it or some unknown time in the future

Situation in the future: I get a voicemail prompt. If I leave a message it could be read as I record it, or some unknown time in the future

Today I'm not really inclined to leave any voicemail because it's unknown if or when it'll be read, and it's more awkward than a call or a text. I'll only leave it if there's literally no other method of communication. I don't see how having a chance that the callee will be reading the voicemail as I leave it will change this.

As it stands the main advantage of call screening is that it makes explicit that someone is on the other line. I'll admit that the advantage of being able to use follow-up prompts isn't really clear (the default prompt of "Go ahead and say your name, and why you are calling" is usually enough).

This is my personal experience, so YMMV, but the way I see it, the live voicemails/call screening is really only useful for random numbers that may or may not be spam calls. 9/10 times (or maybe higher) it's a spam call trying to sell me a car warranty, or scam me with a tech support thing. That other 1/10 it's something I care about, and it would be nice to be able to pick up immediately instead of having to navigate some phone menu when after they leave a voicemail and I confirm that I actually needed to talk to them. Businesses don't text generally, so you're left with live phone calls or voicemails. Having them say who they are and why they're calling is something you already do in a voicemail... so there's no difference.

For actual personal contacts... a text seems like it would be the easier method 99/100 times and I don't think call screening/live voicemail is better in almost any way for personal contacts. Why add some weird AI-interaction abstraction layer to conversation with your personal contacts?

Everyone changed their behaviour when scam calls became more widespread than real calls.

Everyone now texts first. Or we ring a number when exchanging contacts in person so we know the other person got it and knows it’s real.

If this becomes useful, people will start checking their voicemails and leaving them more often.