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Comment by soyiuz | Hacker News Reader

I like this idea, but I no longer trust Google to shepherd their side projects in the long term. Google voice had amazing promise (and I still use it) but it has also been a completely stagnant, without significant updates for a few years now. It conflicts with Hangouts, Google Fi, and the Android SMS app. Contacts are a mess. Ditto Google Groups.

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Agreed on Google Voice, I used it all the way back to the Grand Central days and I wish it were maintained more. That being said, the Hangouts integration isn't that bad now. I know it feels risky to hit that 'merge to hangouts' button but I've been using it for a while without any huge inconveniences. The only problem I run in to is when I need to search for old SMS messages, the only way to do it after merging is by doing an 'in:chats searchterm' search in Gmail. That wouldn't even be so bad except that I also use Inbox and the search doesn't work in Inbox.

In theory I actually like the idea of having my SMS / Phone calls / emails / hangouts merged pretty tightly, but there are a lot of subtle ways that they could really screw up the user experience while making that happen so I'm still nervous about it.

I'm much happier having them carry Google Voice on in Hangouts than kill it. It is an incredibly valuable way to just have a phone number that works without having to pay every month for it.

it is on hangouts for years. and it suck in all and every way imaginable. if there was a way to make it suck, they did it.

you have to keep switching accounts (close conversation, press hamburger icon, click account icon) everytime! got a SMS? switch to the confusing SMS account. Got a SMS on your google voice account? switch to the account (gets better if you have two!).

Dial via google voice? had your SMS account selected last? you will only get a "can't dial" error and the app closes.

it is the worst wtf fest of all google screw-ups in usability ever.

What was really horrible and downright ATROCIOUS was the Messenger (SMS) integration into Hangouts. I was jumping for joy when they freed SMS from Hangouts again recently.

Messenger has been in the Play Store for at least a year or two now, and you could always designate it as your SMS app. It was only recently that they started nudging users to switch to it from Hangouts (which is funny considering that they nudged everyone to use Hangouts for SMS not that long ago).

I'm not sure what you mean by freed SMS from Hangouts - once the two are merged you send and receive SMS in the Hangouts interface, as far as I know that hasn't changed. (That's how I do it today.) It's pretty simple, there's a dropdown menu next to the message input box that lets you select between Hangouts or SMS (if you have a phone number attached to that contact.) Works the same on mobile or in the browser. I remember there was some confusion around that when they initially added it but for the past few months it's been pretty straightforward and reliable.

EDIT: I see now, I think my experience is different from others in that I only use my Google Voice number for everything. Doing SMS to/from your actual phone number inside of hangouts is definitely a disaster. If that were my use case I'd be using the Messenger app. If you're exclusively using your Google Voice number, though, the integration is pretty straightforward.

Your EDIT is right! That was my use case. When I got my new Nexus 6P, I saw a nice, well-functioning new Messenger app and danced a little.

> is by doing an 'in:chats searchterm' search in Gmail. That wouldn't even be so bad except that I also use Inbox and the search doesn't work in Inbox.

is there a way to access gmail once you've switched to inbox? I would love to be able to edit my filters again...

Just open gmail. They actually did a great job of keeping the two in sync.

(Unless you turned on the auto-redirect to inbox, in which case you need to turn that off: https://support.google.com/inbox/answer/6230358?hl=en)

Even with auto-direct turned on you can get to gmail from the Inbox interface: http://imgur.com/82iOdLf

Thank you. Obviously that's easy to do- but I never would have thought to look there! Now I can go home and look like a genius to my wife by stealing credit from you.

Yes, in the left hand side hamburger menu there is a 'Gmail' link. http://imgur.com/82iOdLf

I ran into this recently. There is a gmail "link" in the left column of the Inbox ui. That will get you around the Gmail redirect.

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