Heytell – From Episode 274

Looking for a quick way to send a message to someone? HeyTell can do it for you.

This app holds the coveted position one on page one of my iPhone. Okay so app devs the world over may not be coveting this particular spot on my particular iPhone but I don’t give it up lightly.

Rather then sending someone an SMS you can just send a voice message. It basically turns your phone into a walkie talkie. There are a number of apps like this but this is my favourite because it lets you send these messages really simply.Open the app, select the contact and then just hold your finger on the button and release when your finished talking. Lots of users probably just have one or two people that they will message all the time. So in a lot of cases you don’t even need to select a contact because the last person you messaged is selected by default. The person you message will get a push notification. When they open the app, the message will start playing straight away with no further user actions required.

What I am trying to say is that this app more than any other of this style of app that I have tried gets out of the way and just lets you communicate with the person you wan to. It is much easier and quicker then sending an SMS. Plus it’s free and cross platform, IOS and Android. It’s an IOS app, not just for your iPhone, so you can use it on an iPod touch or iPad as well.

There is more you can do with the app and there’s a few in-app purchases you can buy. What I have described above is the core functionality and it’s free. For free you can also send the recorded voice messages to Twitter, Facebook or as a link in an SMS or email.

The app can show your position on a map to the person you are talking to. of course, you get to choose whether this happens or not. As a blind user this really doesn’t do much for me 🙂 and I almost forgot to mention it all.

If you want to support the developers by sending them a couple of bucks, you can buy a group messaging option which lets you send the ‘HeyTell’ to up to 25 contacts at once.

Or one that I have actually purchased is 25 ring tones. One of the problems I was having with the app was that I sometimes wouldn’t notice the push notification come through. If I checked my phone later there would be a number on the badge icon to let me know but this might not be for a while. Clearly this is not the apps problem but mine, either way the ringtones help. They let you set a different sound to each contact and some of them are a lot longer in length then the standard alert sound, so a lot more noticeable.

You can also purchase configurable message wipe, a voice changer which lets you auto tune or sound like a robot and some decorations for your name. Don’t ask me why you’d want this last one but there you go.

There are three levels of privacy you can choose from. There is no need to create an account to start using the app you just need to select yourself out of your contacts. Dependant upon the privacy setting your friends have selected and how you have them setup in your phone’s contacts, it may be tricky to initially find them but you can send a SMS or email invite from the app and the problem is solved.

Like all the best apps IMO, it is fully accessible with Voice Over. VO is the built in screen reader for the blind and vision impaired.

If you have any questions or suggestions for upcoming reviews send me a message at garth@aussietechheads.com.au or @BlindTechMusing on twitter.