Yahoo! adds voice calling to Messenger for Mac Beta
Wednesday, March 26, 2008 - 08:55 AM ESTSarah Bacon, Yahoo! Product Manager, blogs:
We know you’ve waited a long time for this… The new version of Yahoo! Messenger for Mac Beta now has voice calling!
With this new version, you can make free PC-to-PC calls or sign up for a Phone Out account to make calls from your Mac to regular or mobile phones worldwide for as low as 1¢ a minute (see rates). And if you want friends to be able to call you on your Mac from any phone, sign up for a Phone In account and choose a number.
Now that our Mac version has voice, users can also enjoy two other handy features: free voicemail and call forwarding. If you’re away from your Mac or signed out of Yahoo! Messenger, friends can leave you a voicemail which is then delivered as an email attachment to an address of your choice.
If you want to make sure you don’t miss any calls, use the call forwarding feature to immediately send incoming calls to any regular or mobile phone number. Note that you do need a Phone Out account to use call forwarding.
There is also a new Voice & Calls section in the preferences menu. From there you can set what email address should receive your voicemails, what number your calls should get forwarded to, and handy things like whether or not you want iTunes to pause when a call comes in.
You’ll find the voice features in a new “Voice & SMS” button in your IM window. From there you can start a call, or send a free SMS (text) message to a friend’s mobile phone (note that your friend may be charged for receiving your SMS message depending on their mobile phone data plan).
The main contact list window also has a button near the bottom that opens up a dial pad. This is handy if you have a number you need to call that’s not associated with a contact.
Check out this short screencast to see how the new voice features work:
Direct link via Yahoo! Video: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/2262773/7123600
If you’re curious about the voice features but aren’t ready to sign up for a Phone Out account (or don’t have a friend you can call for free on PC-to-PC), try the “Make a free test call” button in the Voice preferences menu. During the free call you can record and playback your voice to check out the quality.
We really want your feedback on this new version, so after you’ve had some time to try it, please visit our feedback page to let us know what you like and don’t like.
On your mark, get set…start talking!
Source: Yahoo! Messenger Blog
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "AJK" for the heads up.]
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I was beginning to think that Yahoo! had given up on adding Voice to their Mac version after a lack of progress with the beta so this is welcome news.
Competition is a good thing so a mainstream alternative to Skype is important and it does actually have a few advantages over Skype such as the free voicemail to email. It's good to see such commitment to the Mac from Yahoo! and it shows up Microsoft's lack of commitment.