How to Send Audio Messages on iPhone (Not Voicemail!) | Olds for Olds Tutorial
After I went blind from MOG antibody disease, I now survive by yelling into my phone instead of typing or reading. Consider this a PSA for anyone who has a disabled friend and keeps sending them walls of text.
Audio messaging takes 1 min to learn. For olds, by olds:
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00:00 Are You a Geriatric Millennial?
Sophia Chang (00:00)
Hi, I am Sophia Chang and I'm a geriatric millennial. As millennials enter middle age this year, have you discovered that you're having trouble reading your iPhone screen? Are the letters becoming larger and larger until it looks like you're back in preschool?
It's totally normal. Either through disease like me, or just a case of the olds, I have a solution for you: audio messaging.
00:23 Audio Messaging: Not an Answering Machine You Call
Audio messaging does not mean voicemails. That's when you pick up the phone and call somebody — although I do like that. Audio messages is when you can directly send an audio instant message using your phone's either iMessage if you're on iPhone, or on Android, whatever the hell those Google people use.
Since I went blind with MOG antibody disease, a demyelinating disease very similar to multiple sclerosis, I have had to rely on the accessibility features of the iPhone, which is the only reason I still have a smartphone and haven't dumbed down like the rest of my digital minimalists.
My friends and I use the iPhone to send messages to each other through audio, kind of like what you would do with WeChat or WhatsApp or Telegram if you're really shady and you're meeting people off of Tumblr and Reddit — but you can do it directly through your phone. And since iMessages are sent through the internet, you can even do this through your computer internationally.
Now, through the course of the last few years, I've discovered a lot of people don't know how to use these messages. Confusion has abounded.
01:43 Tutorial for Olds, By Olds
So I thought I would record a definitive tutorial, by olds for olds, for people like us who can speak just enough tech to mess up everything. Shall we begin?
So here you can see I'm sharing my screen. This is my iPhone mirrored onto the computer. I had to Google how to do that. Now, this is a text that I sent to myself. Oh my god. But who's this hottie?
02:13 Step 1: Find the Audio Button
All you have to do in your iMessage — normally you would go here, right? What is this in the corner? This is the voice, the audio messaging. And I'll show you how you can get that mark as well.
You go to this button, right? The plus sign on the bottom. And you have all these. This is actually not blown up — this is the size of the font on my actual phone.
And you go to audio. "iPhone is not available." Well, I'm on the Mac, and so that's why you can't see it. However, you can see that my phone is now recording.
02:53 Step 2: Start Talking
Now, if this was not being mirrored onto the Mac, you would just start talking and you would see these lines happen. And when you're done, you just stop.
02:58 Step 3: Stop Talking. Send the Message
And then you send the message — and it's delivered.
It's not going to look like this; this is just because I'm sending myself a message. And now, forever more, it's in this corner. And you can just hit this corner, and again, you can record through this.
And normally you don't have to do this. I just have a phone from 2018 because I refuse to spend money on things that are not broken. So this is how you record audio messages back and forth.
03:31 Android Users Do This
People on Android are also able to do this. How? I don't know. I don't have an Android because I'm not a weirdo, and so I can't show you. But it's probably not going to be too different from what we just did on the iPhone.
So if you can tippity tap into Google — or maybe even Perplexity, if you need an AI to walk you through it — then I'm sure you can find a way to do what I just did, to send audio messages.
04:02 Stop Texting #(@&!
So, for all of you who have been texting me when I asked you not to: you have no more excuses. I have now recorded an olds tutorial, by and for olds.
Thank you for coming to the geriatric millennial geek squad. I need a better name for this. Sophia Chang, the geriatric millennial geek. And I'll see you next time on Olds for Olds tutorials.
04:26 Don't Forget Your Freebie (You Cheapos)
Actually, my show is called The Sophia Chang Show. It's a podcast about books, biceps, and no B.S. And I would love if you would join my newsletter.
You get a whole bunch of freebies when you join, such as a decision tree that tells you whether you're ready for traditional publishing, or if you should have just been an accountant the way your Asian parents told you to. And you also get access to Ask Sophia, where you can leave a question for me about basically any topic whatsoever. I really mean it. And then you will be featured, and I will answer your question on my next episode of the podcast.
I'm also developing a workbook about author voice that's going to be fill-outable. And so there's just a lot of bonuses and goodies for my subscribers, behind the scenes of the wackiness — and you'll never miss a podcast episode.
If there are any other Olds for Olds tutorials that you would like me to poorly demonstrate, let me know. I'll be here with my creaky joints and my technical, not really…
I edit and produce everything myself, no team. ☕ Buy me a boba to help me keep creating.
Sophia Chang is a Reese's Book Club LitUp fellow, disabled dancer, and extroverted writer. She hosts The Sophia Chang Show podcast where she shares No B.S. publishing stories and advice she wishes she'd known. Subscribe if you don't want to cry alone.
