Now Google is soft re-launching this service after 5 years, and wants me to come back? No way. They squandered more than 5 years of first-mover advantage in the "free SMS" space, and have lost to WhatsApp, Facebook, and Apple Messages.
I'm happy than when I need to send test SMSs on my computer, the web app I use will be slightly better. That's my only use-case for Google Voice anymore.
Then Google stopped developing the GV app and I switched from iOS to Android to get the Hangouts Dialer integration. With the Hangouts integration instead of a real GV app, they apparently threw away the spam reporting/filtering (on voice and text) that had been one of its greatest features.
Eventually I got fed up with the poor service. Third parties would refuse to accept my phone number, or would accept it but couldn't actually send me messages. Group MMS didn't work properly. As of late 2013, they "integrated" MMS support with T-Mobile and Sprint. When one of them tried to send you a picture, you'd receive it as an email attachment on your gmail account. MMS from AT&T and Verizon users, as far as I can tell, continue to disappear into the ether.
I have no idea how many missed social calls I had from people in college organizing social lives via group texts that I never got, and they never knew I didn't get because there was zero indication on either end that it wasn't delivered.
As far as I'm concerned, Google Voice is dead. Maybe this reincarnation lasts two years before management decides to refocus on Duo/Allo, or maybe it's six months. Maybe they throw it out and go all-in on a new Project-Fi based VOIP/messaging system. Either way, I'm staying out of it.
My number's been ported to T-Mobile on the $30 prepaid unlimited plan, and I switched back to an iPhone. Voicemail transcriptions work just as well as GV's did, and my text messages don't just vanish anymore. Everything's great.
That is what forced me away from GV a few years back. It is an unforgivable flaw of a communication product for messages to completely disappeared from the system without any party knowing. The fact that Google was comfortable with that flaw for years tells you all you need to know about their commitment to these kind of products. It will take years of updates like this before I start to believe that any renewed commitment will stick.
With Google losing interesting in Voice and integrating it into Hangouts, then apparently losing interesting in Hangouts too, I'd been telling him that Voice was probably dead-dead.
What? Unlimited texting has been included in every phone plan I've ever had since the first iPhone or earlier, before Google Voice existed.
I do have two unusual situations that make Voice a good fit for me: I don't have reliable cell reception in my apartment (so texting and calling through wifi is really useful), and I'm on the T-Mobile $30 plan, so I have only 100 minutes on my "real" phone number (so I make as many calls as possible through gmail on my laptop). It's also really nice to use my regular phone number with no extra effort or roaming fees when traveling internationally.
The only additional caveat I've found is that the proper carrier-level call forwarding to GV voicemail doesn't work with the $30 T-Mobile plan.
I don't know how many nice job opportunities I missed when hiring managers saw my application but could not call me back until I detected the issue.
Ended up switching everything to a new VoIP number I can control in my asterisk server. Only feature I miss is the speech-to-text on voicemails.
Why didn't you migrate your GV number? That seems a lot less painful than telling everyone to update your contact information.
Took like 30 minutes.
Secondly, the Google Hangouts app had effectively replaced Google Voice for years. I think picture messages worked there no problem.
Did you you try the Google Hangouts App before ditching Google? I wonder if most of your problems stem from that.
EDIT: I just verified that I can sent/receive group MMS. It appears this feature has worked since at least 2014. Seems you missed the memo to migrated to Hangouts.
http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/inventor-of-google-voice-n...
And living in an area with spotty service... native SMS always send, and the GV "over data" SMS usually fail. Unless they can fix a LOT of issues AND add incentive to come back, I think I'm fine without it for now.
At the time that I switched, the Hangouts app was having some difficulties of its own. The biggest issue I had with it is that Hangouts would try to upgrade me from an SMS chat to a Hangouts chat with someone, when the recipient was an infrequent or Gmail-only Hangouts user. Google would recognize their number and send Hangouts messages, they wouldn't see the messages on their iOS device because they didn't have a Hangouts app, so to them it would seem like I had stopped responding.
I also haven't figured out how to set it to have Hangouts ring when I am on wifi and forward to the phone only when I'm not. So I get dueling ringers.
I'm glad this is being updated, because it provides value to me and definitely other people, too. If WhatsApp can connect you to landlines or function as an actual phone, then that's excellent news. Even so, I would still appreciate having more options.
"Hey, that's cool! But remember when they randomly killed X, Y, Z," etc...
At least Voice has lasted, I guess.
Finally, it tells me that google still has no idea how to crack the messaging space, and has so no team internally that is taking charge but a bunch of teams with different approaches, all jockeying for executive support.
Google will lose this space because it lacks focus while Facebook is owning it through focus on the messenger platform and the acquisition of whatsapp.
As for google: I have no idea what is up with the stupidity. What people want is simple: an app that works on the PC and the phone, that can do messaging that falls back to SMS if the other-end isn't capable of "data" based communications, and ideally has encryption as an option and video chat as an option. Hangouts was like 90% of the way there, and then for some reason they went insert offensive analogy here and decided to release allo and duo with half the functionality. And oh by the way, after the release of those two apps, Hangouts started acting goofy for a month (which I struggle to believe is coincidence as much as I hate conspiracy BS).
[0] http://scripting.com/davenet/2001/04/30/strategyTax.html
I mean, what was the specific root cause?
Google was in a unique position to deliver a best-in-class messaging client and own the space: they have more users than Facebook or Apple and more good will than either of those companies (based on my own personal opinion and interactions).
Despite that, they've had numerous messaging platforms: Google Talk, Waze (kind of), Hangouts, and Google Voice. I wouldn't call any of them great products - they've all done barely good enough to stay useful, falling short in the areas of cross-platform reliability, group messaging, and multimedia messaging. Meanwhile companies like Slack are eating their lunch. I love Slack (and have in fact moved to using a private Slack team for personal messaging among friends) but it still saddens me a bit that a Google has failed to deliver a solid offering here.
It's pretty confusing and there are so many services that won't take either of my Google Voice numbers.
It's not been very pretty. We were thrown a lifeline with the Google Hangouts app taking over for the absolutely-awful Google Voice app.
One of the most frustrating things about GV is that for certain SMS providers, it fails the "is this a USA number test" or "can we SMS to it" test (it's unclear which), thus making it not work with my USA bank accounts, and I can't register for Lyft, for example.
I wish they'd fix this, but what I really wish is that they'd make it a real product, make it cost a few bucks a month, and have a team working on it.
I was actually quite annoyed by the cheeky little "tee hee it's been 5 years + plus emoji" talking about their total lack of updates (both software, and well, actual communication around the service). It just comes across as contempt for the customer. Doubly so when they then throw everything into confusion at the end of the post by hinting that Hangouts may or may not be the future, and perhaps we should switch back?
Are there any good alternatives? What I need is to be able to receive texts from within the USA, be able to access via mobile app and the web, and have voicemail service.
> I wish they'd fix this, but what I really wish is that they'd make it a real product, make it cost a few bucks a month, and have a team working on it.
I agree with this, especially the SMS part.
> I was actually quite annoyed by the cheeky little "tee hee it's been 5 years + plus emoji" talking about their total lack of updates (both software, and well, actual communication around the service). It just comes across as contempt for the customer.
Interesting. I did not read it that way. I read it more as them being a bit humble.
I definitely read it as snark rather than humble. Humble would have been something like "We're sorry we went so long without an update but we are committed to fixing this and supporting this app going forward. Thank you for your loyalty and patience." Instead, this was more like "Oh, you people are still here? Huh."
I suspect this is due to the NIST report about using VOIP/SMS for 2-factor was not secure (which is true. They can be spoofed).
I've also worked for a teleco that, in the case of getting an SMS for a ported number, would just send that SMS to ALL the other national providers in that country. We used relays for the other providers that would just drop the message if it didn't belong to them. My first job was actually to fix that by doing a ported number lookup and sending SMSs to only the provider it was ported to.
Living in the US, when I receive an occasional text from my distant family members in Europe, I can't text a reply, I can't call right now (because of the timezone difference), and I can't email (some of them don't have email).
Then you get full featured texts and voice calling in gmail and the hangouts app. It'll cost $20/mo.
You might want try the RWG Mobile app [1][2]. Although I have only used it within the UK, they appear to give you a real number rather than VOIP number. I'm not sure if this applies to the US or Canada, but you could check with them.
One of the main reasons I started using the app was because it was the only one I could find that could successfully receive 2FA SMSs. Another reason was because EE hadn't yet enabled Wi-Fi Calling for my phone (Nexus 6P) and I needed a way to receive text messages over Wi-Fi since the 2G/3G reception is really poor where I work.
Being able to centralise voicemail [3] across multiple devices is also quite useful.
[1] https://www.rwgmobile.wales/features/
[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rwgmobile....
[3] https://bayton.org/2016/07/using-rwg-mobile-for-simple-cross...
So that's lovely, though overall the PMs and VPs need to reconcile all the apps with each other. A friend recently bought a Pixel Phone and was lost as to what to use. I mean, I can't blame him...
* Phone's generic looking SMS app
* Hangouts
* Voice
* Allo
* Duo
They killed Google Talk, ignored Google Voice, abandoning Hangouts, and their new apps are wastelands. Throw in the Wave, Buzz, and Plus projects, and it's astonishing just how massively Google is screwing up.
- Duo : here is an app in order to make video calls. I am ok to have a different icon on my launcher for this specific task. Especially since it comes with great perfs. I just miss a camera icon in places like the contacts app allowing to call the person with either Duo or another equivalent video call app (skype)
- Spaces : ok it is not going to work out but I can see this kind of semi public topical conversations as an usecase needing its own app.
- SMS Hangouts Allo -> this is where I have an issue. Anecdote : my mom calls SMS 'mails'. Casual users have a hard time following the different ways to send a text. And it is not their fault. all these apps serve the same purpose : send texts. I hope that some day we will have a single app in order to do it.
How do I send a text? Messenger.
How do I make a call? Messenger.
How do I make a video call? Messenger.
Try answering the same question using Google's services.
As I understood it, Voice was dying on the vine, and then google pushed everyone to Hangouts (to replace the built in SMS app on the phone anyways), but now Hangouts is suggesting to use other apps for SMS (but it still can anyways), so do I use GVoice or the built in one (answer: depends on the phone number you want the recipient to see). But now Allo came out, and that's somehow kinda like Hangouts but not? It has not-SMS chats like Hangouts, so it's just a hangouts replacement. But wait, Hangouts also does video chat - how's that different from Duo?
Google's product messaging is probably the most confusing in the entire technology industry.
It's like maybe I'm thinking I should now move away from GV because their executive team has shined their spotlight on it, unearthed a working service and will now exploit it for their own professional benefit, sucking the value out of it to achieve personal career advancements leaving users in the dust once it all falls apart and the next iteration begins.
My phone number isn't a product that's ripe for Google-style innovation. I value stability and want to depend on it. I'm really unhappy about all this.
I guess Google needs a cigarette or ten.
And even today, I still often find situations where I have a new voicemail despite my phone never ringing. I even check the call log on my phone and nothing ever came in.
The MMS updates and this new suite of UIs are definitely welcome additions if you ask me, and hopefully indicative that the service isn't circling the drain after all (which I've been anticipating for some time now).
I think I avoided the issues that you have just do to a nice (accidental) little quirk, though.
I have my Google Voice account associated with my (grandfathered-in) G-Suite address, and Project Fi only allows you to sign up wiht a Gmail address. Therefore, I was able to port my old Verizon number to my @gmail address (which rarely gets used) that's associated with Project Fi and keep my GVoice number where it was, at my G-Suite address.
So I'm currently using my Nexus 5X on Project Fi with both my carrier number (which I've had for probably 15 years now) and with my GVoice number (which I've had for 6+).
If H.R. 460 passes (unlikely), Google may have to become a real telephony provider, with service standards.[1]
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/460/...
Get your shit together Google.
What the hell is going on at Google? Is there anyone with an actual strategy for anything? I thought about getting Google Fi, but right on their page they said if you move from Voice to Fi you can't go back.
I would easily pay $5 a month or more for a company that could give me a single number and not be terrible. I think if Google actually charged for a lot of their free stuff it wouldn't be so shit/never updated/abandoned/etc.. - like an Amazon Prime type thing.
They kept pushing Hangouts, and right when it was actually somewhat usable and represented a unified interface to messaging, they started abandoning it and trying to fragment the functionality off into separate apps again.
I'll continue to use GV, but Google's track record of confusing moves in this space guarantees I will always keep it as a separate number. It's still very useful like that, since it allows me to text and call from any device or service.
I stopped giving out my GV number, but you can set up your Verizon cell phone to use Google Voice as your voice mail service, and I love getting transcriptions to my email inbox of missed phone calls!
The app update is welcome, as you still have to use the app to listen to the voice message on the rare occasion when the transcription didn't pick it up.
There was a time when success was the default outcome for a new Google product/service. Now it's the opposite, and the crazy thing is that Google did it to themselves.
Google Reader is the best example of this. People LOVED it. It was even a successful social network!
But that was the whole reason I wanted a voice number. I had my regular number I only gave to my close friends and family and would give my voice number to anyone who asked. After I got Fi I could no longer make or receive calls on my voice number.
It's certainly been neglected over the years, but despite that I've stuck with it (all the way since the GrandCentral days) because the alternative is so much worse. I've changed phone providers numerous times and also travel internationally: the fact that each of these moves would've otherwise required either complex number porting or letting people know about my new number is enough to make me put up with Google Voice's inadequacies. Plus, I love being able to manage SMS from my computer, just like it's another inbox.
I hope they're serious about maintaining and updating GV going forward. It's conceptually essential.
It's been around 3 years since Google started to scare all its users into thinking Voice would be shut down or merged with another service.
I need a working commercial solution and I don't mind paying for it. I'm sick of Google halfassing every product they work on that isn't Search or AdWords.
Which one should I use, Google, for fuck's sake.
I'm just happy to see a commitment to the product, and to future updates. There really isn't anything else like it out there. I love it.
I am not going to lie but as a Google Voice customer for a long time, I am very disappointed with this update. It is just a design change and I hope they will roll out several new features slowly.
For example I still would like them to add a feature where I can add credit to my Google Voice account through the phone app.
Among the top three features they have listed as new in the blog post, I feel like that those functionalities already exist on the current iOs app. Lets see.
1: Easily check messages, calls and voicemail(s)
Already there. Using the same top left corner main menu.
2: Keep in touch with group messages
This already exists as well. You can start message threads with multiple people. Except the media support I guess.
3: Save time with transcribed voicemail
This feature is already available. In current version, go to Menu -> Voicemail and you will see transcribed messages in your inbox.
I am honestly very confused if this just a teaser in to what is about to become a major project within Google or just a marketing team being busy.
Their answer to questions is pretty much "of course they're the same system!"
I found hangouts on Android tough to use for SMS.
Internal investment in any established Google service seems to be a liability not a benefit, when all of a sudden the balance sheet is worse.
Why on earth didn't they just improve Hangouts?
Despite what a lot of the threads here are saying, honestly we did this based on user feedback and user research. Most people wanted this, even if they're not all on HN.
My wife just texted me, "Hey, I got two calls today that went straight to voicemail?" I switched her to google voice a month ago, and it generally works. Stuff like this, the syncing issues with their messenger platforms, delayed or randomly missed messages, are just not acceptable.
I've essentially stopped using hangouts anyway. Everybody I talked to on there is on Discord now (https://discordapp.com/). Screenshare and video calls coming soon to it too, at which point I'll permanently log off Hangouts. If I'm going to use a proprietary system, it might as well not suck.
I signed up for Voice to use Voice. Not to use Hangouts.
Oh dear. And here I thought that Voice was just abandoned.
Nonetheless, I find Google Voice so valuable that I overlooked the potential hassle of it going away. It's just amazingly convenient to get my texts on my computer, tablet, and phone. It's so nice to get voicemails transcribed and in my inbox...I hate making phone calls and I hate listening to voicemail.
So, for all of Google's long neglect of the product, I don't know of anything as good, even among products that cost money. So, I'm not gonna trash talk them now, after they've finally done an update and exhibited some evidence that the product has a future. I'm just glad they seem to plan to keep it alive.
And, for all of Google's neglect of the product, it is still the Google product I recommend more than any other (I think). I may use GMail/Inbox more often, and I may interact with more people via Docs/Drive, but so few people know about Google Voice that I end up recommending it a lot more than anything else.
When you click around, you get to see icons and screenshots from a bygone era
Now they each have a permanent number that goes just to voicemail. The messages are transcribed, sent to a gmail account set up for just that number and then forwarded to the people that need to receive it.
Personally, I have a lot less trust in any organization that won't put a phone number on their website. But I also understand why people aren't anxious to give out their own cell or home phones.
PS: It was $20 for one (because I transferred a number) and $30 for the other (because I requested a second number). The gmail accounts are free. It takes some knowledge to make this happen but it's a much better deal than $9.95/month to a voicemail provider.
I have Sprint, which integrates with Google Voice so I can use my Sprint number on Google Voice, with all my texts and all my calls sitting nicely in Google Voice. I have the Google Voice Chrome extension installed, which allows me to tell my girlfriend I'm still at work whenever she texts me, allowing me to maintain some sort of focus for the next 9 minutes until she texts me again.
This issue has been addressed a few years ago but still they never give any option to extend ringing time. What a poor service.
THE PHONE IS RINGING OMG OMG INTERPROCESS MESSAGE BUS TRAFFIC!!!!!!1111111ONE
The process that plays the sound that rings your phone is just another process fighting it out with all the other ones for CPU time. Sometimes it loses.
And Fi doesn't give any option to change ringing time. :(
But, of course, the web and phone versions of hangouts have serious UX problems because it's a chat app first and a SMS/MMS app second. Instead of directly searching for people in the messaging, which will give me 2nd-degree contacts I've never spoken with instead of my actual google contacts with phone numbers, I search through the phone call interface and click the SMS button. On the phone, it tries its hardest to hide the SMS functionality behind Hangouts. And of course, Hangouts is less popular since they gutted that product. They need to stop their forced upgrade attempts. And incoming GV phone calls only show up in the Phone app's history, while outgoing only show in Hangouts. Not to mention how utterly difficult it is to search just GV SMS/voicemail history now. It's like they rounded up every stoned-useless intern they could and told them to break the product.
Also, I'd much rather they build their feature set around an API than around apps. They've already proven they have no idea on how to manage apps. I'd rather just have an API we can build against and use. Or even just treat GV as a SIP number that we connect to. I could build myself a pretty sweet SMS/VoiceXML gateway app for routing my calls. But depending on Google to not ruin things is kind of a lost cause at this point.
Free, carrier-agnostic web SMS should be an international thing, as long as it's not abused. And that ideal is probably one of the main reasons I stick with it.
- 2006-02-07: Google Talk integration inside Gmail goes live [35]
- 2006-09-26: Facebook opens up to everyone (not just colleges) [36]
- 2007-02-14: (corrected date) Gmail opens up to everyone (not just invite-only) [37]
- 2008-04-06: Facebook chat goes live [34]
- 2008-07-11: iOS App Store launches [38]
- 2008-08-26: Facebook hits 100 million active users [24]
- 2008-09-23: Android 1.0 launches [39]
- 2008-11-11: Google Talk introduces voice and video calling [40]
- 2009-03-11: Google buys GrandCentral, launches Google Voice [1]
- 2009-04-08: Facebook hits 200 million active users [25]
- 2009-06: iOS gets push notifications [42]
- 2009-06-25: Google Voice invitations being serviced [2]
- 2009-09-15: Facebook hits 300 million active users [26]
- 2010-02-04: Facebook hits 400 million active users [27]
- 2010-05-20: Android gets push notifications [41]
- 2010-06-21: FaceTime released with iOS 4 [43]
- 2010-06-22: Google Voice opens up invite-free to everyone in the US [3]
- 2010-07-21: Facebook hits 500 million active users [28]
- 2011-01-05: Facebook hits 600 million active users [29]
- 2011-05-30: Facebook probably hits around 700 million active users [30]
- 2011-06-28: Google+ launches, with text chat "+Messenger" and video chat "+Hangouts" [4]
- 2011-07-06: Facebook introduces video calling powered by Skype behind-the-scenes, needs installation [5]
- 2011-08-09: Facebook introduces Messenger app [6]
- 2011-09-22: Facebook hits 800 million active users [31]
- 2011-10-12: iMessage released with iOS 5
- 2012-04-23: Facebook hits 900 million active users [32]
- 2012-09-20: Facebook tries SMS sending from Messenger [7]
- 2013-04-17: Wired editorial on "Will Google Hang Up on Voice?" [8]
- 2013-05-15: Google launches 'Google Hangouts', which subsumes Google Talk, Google+ Messenger, Google+ Hangouts [9]
- 2013-10-29: Facebook discontinues send-SMS support in Messenger, sends Messenger message instead [10]
- 2013-10-29: Google Hangouts Android App gets SMS handler support [11]
- 2014-02-19: Facebook announces it will acquire WhatsApp [12]
- 2014-04-09: Facebook removes chat from its main app, forces people to use Messenger [13]
- 2014-09-11: Google Hangouts gets Google Voice integration [14]
- 2015-03-25: Facebook announces Messenger Platform for business, bot, and ad integration [15]
- 2015-04-27: Facebook Messenger gets native video calling [16]
- 2016-01-27: Hangouts 7.0 asks users to use Google Messenger for SMS instead [17]
- 2016-06-14: Facebook Messenger gets Android SMS handler support [18]
- 2016-07-13: Hangouts 11.0 removes support for merged conversations [19]
- 2016-08-16: Google releases Duo [20]
- 2016-09-21: Google releases Allo [21]
- 2016-10-07: Duo is replacing Hangouts in the base Android install [22]
- 2017-01-23: Google launches rebooted Google Voice app, with Hangouts-like UI
[1] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/here-comes-google-vo... [2] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/google-voice-invites... [3] http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/google-voice-for... [4] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-p... [5] https://www.facebook.com/notes/philip-su/building-video-call... [6] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2011/08/a-faster-way-to-message... [7] https://techcrunch.com/2012/09/20/facebook-android-update-yo... [8] https://www.wired.com/2013/04/google-voice-future-uncertain/ [9] http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/15/4318830/inside-hangouts-go... [10] https://techcrunch.com/2013/10/29/facebook-messenger-phone-n... [11] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/google-hangouts-gets-... [12] http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/02/facebook-to-acquire-what... [13] https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/09/facebook-messenger-or-the-... [14] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/google-hangouts-gets-... [15] https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2015/03/25/introdu... [16] http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/04/introducing-video-callin... [17] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/01/google-hangouts-7-0-f... [18] https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/14/facebook-messenger-texting... [19] http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/07/google-hangouts-for-a... [20] https://blog.google/products/duo/meet-google-duo-simple-1-to... [21] https://blog.google/products/allo/google-allo-smarter-messag... [22] http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/7/13202866/google-hangouts-a... [23] http://www.whoishostingthis.com/blog/2014/10/22/instant-mess... [24] https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/our-first-100-millio... [25] https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/200-million-strong/7... [26] https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/300-million-and-on/1... [27] http://web.archive.org/web/20100212075226/http://blog.facebo... [28] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jul/21/facebook-... [29] http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-has-more-than-600-mi... [30] http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-nears-700-mil... [31] http://mashable.com/2011/09/22/facebook-800-million-users/ [32] http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/23/technology/facebook-q1/ [33] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11114518 [34] https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/facebook-chat-now-we... [35] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/chat-email-crazy-del... [36] https://techcrunch.com/2006/09/26/facebook-just-launched-ope... [37] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/from-gmail-with-3.ht... [38] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/06/09Apple-Introduces-t... [39] https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2008/09/announcing... [40] https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/11/say-hello-to-gmail-voic... [41] https://blog.serverdensity.com/android-push-notifications-tu... [42] https://www.urbanairship.com/push-notifications-explained [43] https://web.archive.org/web/20100609163523/http://www.engadg...
Since they block a tribal community college, they are on my "not happy" list. I surely hope no recruiter uses Google Voice if this is still true.
1) http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/10/google-voice-were...
All these years, even though the product has had an outdated UI, I didn't mind using it, since, it has been functional and served it's purpose. Now that Google is starting to invest more resources into Google Voice, my only hope is that they don't kill any of the existing wonderful features. I love the product and it would be awesome if they don't add any kind of "social" aspect to a very functional and useful product.
I haven't received the iOS update yet, but, I'm really looking forward to it.
But after all 5 years, no group messaging... seriously. No MMS, went to email in an attachment. Remember back in 2011 there was a month where all my texts received were delayed by hours. When I heard they were concentrating on Hangouts instead I didn't understand why they kept GV around. It should have belonged in their graveyard. Now they're reviving it? Got the unlimited T-Mobile plan, and so many people have free texting now bundled into their plans. I've been using FB Messenger now as my main text program for years.
Google blew this, but granted I would have never guessed text messaging would have gotten this big. My bet would have been on Video Calls.
I hope hope hope that we can get old google back. I used to be a fanboy back in tje day but they have made a decent effort to get rid of us over the last ten years. For me it has been the breaking of blogger (bad js + redirect to country specific domain), tasteless heavy pushing of Chrome, making Android closed, killing gds, still pretending Europeans are less worth than Americans (actually we never got access to google voice).
Theres a lot of stuff that could need old google like social networks (google+ is wonderful but few uses it), communication (I was a walking billboard for Whatsapp, but they sold out to Facebook and Facebook went ahead to confirm all our scepticism as valid) etc etc.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-voice/id318698524?&ct...
Edit update: This is similar to forcing sign in on maps (via dark ux) and search (for cross device attribution, ie squeezing more $ out of you, not providing a better service).
The fact that this project got refunded is also a tell that Google finds value in Voice (maybe). The question I'd ask is what value is it that they see? A couple of thoughts:
* Move voice users out of Hangouts to reduce users of the monolith.
* Test the current user bases' interest in updates - maybe there's something bigger brewing and this update is an experiment to learn about user habits.
* Create a pipeline program to covert users to Fi.
* Release work done over the holiday vacation that was cheap enough / good enough to release.
It let us replace our $40/month CenturyLink landline (including taxes and caller ID) with a one-time purchase of the Obihai box ($40 on special) and the $20 porting fee to make the number permanent with Google Voice.
Our school district uses automated phone calls. Having Google Voice answer them, transcribe them, and send them to both me and my wife has been awesome.
Personally, I choose to interpret these updates as a their response to me. Finally!
Thanks for making good, big G. Keep it up.
The whole point of GV has always been to be a free PSTN<->VOIP gateway. That's a very valuable feature by itself. AFAIK, only FreedomPop offer mostly the same functionality for free (though not unlimited). Aside from carrier issues, I haven't had any problems with GV.
It just works, it's very useful and it's free. I'm happy with it, and I hope they improve the existing functionality before they add features.
Instead, they release updated apps... this is about killing _Hangouts_, which I don't particularly care about. Whew!!
Honestly, I would be _ecstatic_ if Google started charging for Voice. $1/month, $12/year seems about right. I want confidence the service is going to be around for years to come.
Also, ios10 call integration would be very sweet. Hopefully this new update has it.
Something else I hope they've fixed: many web sites could not send SMS to GV numbers. For example my Chase bank account. I could never get a text code to login with a new device, so had to use email to verify instead. I experienced probably a dozen services that could not send to GV.
Refresh looks great! Can't wait to try it out.
This news is a relief.
1) Use the app on your phone which will transparently create a temporary number that your device calls that then connects you to the other party. 2) Use the website/apps/apis to do a "Callback" where your GV number calls you, and once you answer, calls the other party 3) Call your own gv number, hit a key, enter your pin, then enter the number you want to dial (no internet required)
[1] http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/google-voice/google-...
It doesn't even show up in Google Play...
