Voice2Mail – email your thoughts

Since migrating from Windows Mobile I have been looking for an app like this. For years I used Note2Self from the Web I.S. folks to send myself an occasional voice note. The first week I had my new WP7 phone I purchased Note2Self (no relation), an app that sends an email to a predefined address. Not that valuable a feature but I sort of hoped that the dev would add voice but so far “no go”. Then Voice Recorder from Xochl Media was released with a feature to send voice mail notes, but that didn’t last long as messages were being sent anonymously through their server and you can only imagine what some of the messages probably contained. That dev has promised to bring back voice to email once Microsoft releases some new API’s. Sure, any day now.

Stumbled upon Voice2Mail from MaSta Software and so far I like it. This app also uses their server to send messages to any address you enter, so not sure how they are going to deal with the “obscene anonymous message thing” but hey, that’s not my problem. Guess if they just pulled the info from the “Me” tile and imbedded it into the email that would sort of make things right. Anyway, Voice2Mail allows you to send short voice messages in WAV format to a pre-defined email address(es)  or up to six alternate email addresses. Setup includes a default email address (or multiple addresses separated by ; ) and default subject line prefix (get’s loaded in front of your subject) for your message, along with options to; automatically start recording on startup, automatic send after recording (after 5 second timeout), and play sound on start/stop recording. There is also an option to set a Max recording time which has no limit, but they do remind you that recording size is about 2MB/minute, so this setting is defaulted to 30 seconds. A second screen lists six definable categories, which are basically alternate subject lines for your message. So you can insert things like; Deep Thoughts, Reminder, Don’t Forget, etc. and use these instead of the default you setup in the earlier screen. One neat feature is that you can imbed a subject+an alternate email address in any of these category fields. So you can theoretically setup six alternate address to send voice notes to; you spouse, kids, friends or an alternate personal address. The syntax would look like: Voice Note#->anyname@domain.com. Good idea. The app also includes a very nicely done eight page pivot tutorial, probably the best instruction manual for any app I have seen so far.

Voice2Mail opens to the main screen where you can enter a subject (or use the default) and also enter a message in the body of your email before recording. Tap record and begin talking. The app shows cumulative time as well as KB size as you talk and a countdown to the Max recording time you defined in settings. When you are finished with your message, you can tap one of the Quick Buttons (categories defined in settings) to update the subject line / send to an alternate address or tap the top of the screen to stop recording. If you checked “automatic send after recording” the app will give you 5 seconds to cancel the send (by tapping anywhere) or you can tap “Yes, Send Immediately” to get your message moving. I tried 3 messages, all between 500-750KB, and they were each sent in a matter of a few seconds. Note that I was using WiFi while testing the app. If you cancel the send or do not enable automatic send, you have options to; listen to the message, save or delete. Tapping the folder icon takes you to your saved messages where you can delete, listen, or edit to change the subject line, add/edit the email message and send the message. Note that if you did not select one of those Quick button alternate email addresses before saving you can’t go back and select it later. But if you selected one initially and the saved, you can still send to the alternate address, or even change the alternate address at that point.

Overall a quick and easy way to send short voice notes to your or other email inboxes. Not yet supported by WP7 but I would like to see an option to record messages in OGG format which would make for much smaller message size. The app includes a fully functional trial (thank you) that will bring up a nag screen after using it for awhile, or you can purchase for $1.99. You can find that app under Productivity in Marketplace here.