My iPhone feels Orange

When in France, do as Orange does. For the past few weeks, iPhone 3G users in France have suffered intermittent voicemail glitches, often in the form of erroneous outgoing messages. As time goes on, it appears the light at the end of the tunnel is, as my computer would have said a few years ago, the headlamp of a fast approaching train.

While most users may not be affected by the issue, those who are will not necessarily notice. Why? Because one rarely calls one's own voicemail, and check whether the outgoing message is the right one. My natural tendency to paranoia means I have a daily reminder to do just that, and it proved an excellent decision.

The day after switching to my iPhone 3G, my voicemail decided I was no longer the CEO of Webstellung, but rather of Antonia Communication — my company's former, now long forgotten name. Upon calling up Orange I was informed that I was "lucky" as some voicemail accounts had not only been associated with old, long deleted messages, but with messages that did not even belong to their owners!

Since then, voicemail messages have come and gone randomly. Today, I was greeted by Orange's own syrupy voice, while yesterday it was the right recording indeed.

Of course, none of the officially sanctioned methods to save, remove or alter a recording work: neither the buttons on the iPhone, nor the voicemail's own menu options do anything. As for Orange.fr, it's as helpful as always.

On a side note, here is a trick, if you are affected. While you cannot prevent the default recording from kicking in once in a while, you can probably replace the part where your own name is played by something accurate. That doesn't make it any less frustrating, but at least you may be able to erase the name of the number's previous owner.

Now, might you ask, what is Orange doing? We shall never now, but probably nothing at all. I have been twice informed that they've "brought it up with Apple," which, knowing how fast both Apple and Orange work when customer satisfaction in the French market is involved, doesn't bode too well.

After all, voicemail messages flow in normally once the wrong recording has played, so it's merely cosmetic and the situation offers an ideal opportunity for both parties to hold the other responsible until the end of time.

For the time being, and for lack of a better option, I will be keeping my fingers crossed. Apart from that, I hear MobileMe speeds from Europe will soon be worked on too, right after that foul-smelling Mac Pro issue is taken care of.