Just a week ago, I was writing about Jott. I have been using it since December to leave quick voice messages for myself and close friends which would be automatically transcribed to e-mails. I wrote about my experiences here.
Well, here is the bad news…as of September 8, Jott is no longer a free service. While one plan is still listed as free, it removes the service’s best feature–being able to send messages straight to someone’s e-mail.
A quick internet search of “alternatives to Jott” put me onto this Lifehacker post. In a few minutes, I was up and running with reQall.
The direction are pretty straightforward. You will be asked to set up a free account by supplying your name, choosing a user name and password, providing the phone number (or numbers) from which you are going to be calling, and supplying an e-mail address.
In the “Notifications” section, I put check marks beside “e-mail.” Finally, I added the reQall phone number (1-888-973-7255) to my BlackBerry contacts and set it as a speed dial key.
I composed several sample messages. Within 10-15 minutes, the messages I left were showing up in my e-mail.
The major way I had used Jott was to send reminders to myself, so reQall is a good substitute. What about sending messages to someone else? Add them as a contact at the reQall site and you can “share” a message.
What you have read here are my perceptions after just a few minutes with reQall. Does anyone else had more experience with this or similar services?
Anonymous
August 23, 2008 6:02 pmNot sure I understand: the major way you use Jott, to leave notes to yourself, is still free. Actually it’s improved because of the Jott Express client they just released.
Dr. Frank Buck
August 23, 2008 6:18 pmYou are right in that the major way I use Jott is to leave notes to myself. With the “Basic Jott” plan (the one that will be free), you can only see those notes on the Jott website. The great feature was having them be e-mailed to me so that they all fed into the same system. This is a pretty major change. Of course $4 a month is not a bad price to pay for the regular Jott account which does allow for the e-mails.
Anonymous
August 23, 2008 9:50 pmFrank,
you should download Jott Express, and see what you think. You can get your notes there — a tool that is on your desktop — and NOT on the web site.
Dr. Frank Buck
August 24, 2008 9:22 amThanks. That would be more convenient that having to remember to go to the website. I am going to take you up on this and post my thoughts. Even if it is not the best thing for me, it may well be perfect for another reader who is still searching for simple tools.
Tracey
August 24, 2008 4:24 pmI haven’t used reQall long. Just long enough to learn it can’t talk to I Want Sandy. And to the contacts it can talk to, if one of you deletes a message on their reQall account, it removes it from the other as well.
For just remembering things, it’s great.