System and method for providing an automatic response to a telephone call

A method, for use with a wireless phone, of providing an automatic response to an incoming telephone call, comprising:

• receiving a request from a user that incoming telephone calls are to be automatically responded to;
• at the wireless phone, receiving an incoming telephone call;
• connecting the incoming telephone call to the wireless phone;
• employing a reseonse algorithm to select a pre-recorded voice message, wherein the pre-recorded voice message is selected from a plurality of pre-recorder voice messages saved in an internal database within the wireless phone;
• transmitting the pre-recorded voice message over a voice path, the voice path being created when the incoming telephone call was connected to the wireless phone;
• and
• disconnecting the incoming telephone call after the pre-recorded voice message has been transmitted without accepting a voice message from a caller.

A method of providing an automatic response to an incoming telephone call in a wireless telephone device, comprising:

• receiving a request from a user that incoming telephone calls are to be automatically responded to with a text message;
• receiving an incoming telephone call;
• transmitting a request to an internal database within the wireless device for additional information about the user's schedule;
• receiving additional information from the internal database;
• selecting a text message to be transmitted based at least partially on the additional information received, wherein the text message is selected from a group of text messages;
• transmitting the text message using a text message protocol, wherein the transmitted text message is selected from a plurality of text messages;
• and
• disconnecting the incoming telephone call after the text message has been transmitted without accepting a voice message from a caller.

A wireless telephone device, comprising:

• means for receiving a request from a user that incoming telephone calls are to be automatically responded to;
• means for receiving an incoming telephone call;
• means for connecting the incoming telephone call;
• means for selecting a pre-recorded voice message from a plurality of pre-recorded voice messages saved in an internal database within the wireless device, wherein the means for selecting comprise a response algorithm used to select the pre-recorded voice message;
• means for transmitting the selected pre-recorded voice message over a voice path, the voice path being created when the incoming telephone call was connected;
• and
• means for disconnecting the incoming telephone call after the pre-recorded voice message has been transmitted without accenting a voice message from a caller.

A wireless telephone device, comprising:

• a housing;
• a wireless transceiver for communicating with a publicly switched telephone network;
• an output device;
• an input device, wherein the input device includes a plurality of auto-response buttons;
• and
• an internal memory module, the internal memory module adapted to store pre-recorder messages and instructions for permitting a user of the apparatus to save pre-recorded messages and adapted to store call response data and a response algorithm used to select one of the pre-recorded messages to transmit to a caller when an incoming telephone call is automatically responded to and further adapted to store a log incoming calls automatically responded to, and
• wherein the response algorithm employs, at least in part, the call response data stored in the internal memory module to determine which of the one pre-recorded messages to automatically transmit to the caller based on the incoming telephone call.