Updates to our Google Voice apps | Hacker News Reader

Updates to our Google Voice apps

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I used to use my Google Voice number as my primary contact number, but when development of the product seemingly died for three years without addressing outstanding issues with group MMS or picture messages, I migrated back to my regular cell number. I've already told all my friends to forget my Google Voice number. I've changed my preferences in every service I use to contact my regular cell number.

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.

Out of curiosity, why didn't you keep using it, but with Hangouts instead?

I thought Hangouts only got those features working with Google Voice numbers about a year ago?

Has it really only been that long ago? I honestly thought it was longer than that.

It's hard to say since they added features over time. Hangouts launched in May 2013, then got one side of the MMS features working via Google Voice numbers in September 2014 http://www.droid-life.com/2014/09/10/mms-now-a-part-of-googl... Depending on your carrier, it might send the SMS recipient a URL to the content instead of a real MMS. And even now, there's no way to search messages from within the Hangouts app. You have to search from your gmail!

There was some other limitation for a while that kept me from moving. Group messages, or voicemail maybe? They did eventually fix it though, so I can't remember.

Group SMS and MMS messages weren't supported by the backing service. As group messages became more popular as more of my friends got smartphones, I'd miss more and more communications that my friends were having. Additionally, there were times when even regular SMS messages would be delivered minutes or hours late. The whole system felt unreliable. It felt like the only purpose was to send outbound messages from the computer.

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.

Same gripe I've had on iOS past, could never figure out if my response was going to go over sms, imessage, or email, and if email which account, so I just avoid as much as possible, and don't setup additional accounts on my iOS devices or ones i set up. Mostly to avoid getting "why am i getting email responses to my text messages" questions etc.

Not saying it's hard or complicated, just hard and complicated enough for me to avoid. When I send someone a message there should be no guesswork involved. Not sure how both google and apple could mess this stuff up so badly in their attempts to make it "just work." Or how much of the issue is the "use only our ecosystem or your shit may to break" mentality.

:grumble grumble:

Apple doesn't care if you can communicate with non Apple users. They have their iMessage population hostage. Those people can never switch to Android because they'll be left out of group texts. It's vendor lock-in of the highest order. Spectacular play by Apple, really. They guarantee switching to Android is painful, you risk losing business deals and messages from friends. I doubt it's legal, but for now they are getting away with it.

If you include a non-iOS number in a group chat it becomes an SMS group chat. Not sure what the big deal is.

That's true, but if one of the people in an existing thread deactivates iMessage it will stay as an iMessage group chat and silently fail to deliver to that person.

Why would Android users be left out of group texts? I regularly message a group that has a mix of iMessage/SMS users and it's worked pretty well.

When you switch from an iPhone to an Android phone, other people's iPhones will continue to send you messages over iMessage, which your Android phone will never see.

If you unregister your number from iMessages, group texts switch over from iMessages to non-iMessage as soon as you send a message that has a member in it that is no longer iMessage.

That's not true. Everyone in the thread has to delete the thread and create a new one before new messages will go to an iMessage-deactivated number.

This has not been my experience. I have some very long running group messages that switched over automatically when my brother switched from iPhone to Android.

I've never had a problem with mixed Android/iOS group messages and media with iMessage. I've made no special effort to get it to work. It's seamless. Am I doing something wrong? Or right, rather?

Now, back when I used Android I remember Hangouts ruining everything it touched and I had to switch back to the deprecated Messages app (which was completely fine and did not need replacing) to fix it. Maybe the problem with the Android users on these group texts isn't on the iMessage side....

If you associate your phone number with an iMessage account, and then deactivate iMessage, Apple will just silently stop delivering group iMessages to you. You won't notice and your friends won't notice, they'll just stop coming.

Even now with Fi, I experience delays in delivery of SMS occasionally. I don't do SMS normally and most of the time I receive SMS for verification codes. A delay is annoying for that purpose.

I just recently realized I had to tell Hangouts to ring.

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 assuming what happened is they used Google Voice to jumpstart Google Fi and left Voice around as a neglected old version which they actually kept supporting (whoo). Now Fi is settled they're turning their focus back to Voice.

Except that Fi leaves the really killer Voice features behind. You don't get texts or voice transcriptions emailed to you in Fi.

You do get them in hangouts (on the handset and in gmail on the web). I do get why you might want them via vanilla email, though.

no, they bought a company called Grand Central in 2007 and re-branded it as Voice. This was well before Fi. A couple of the key players from GC left to form Uber Conference in 2012 which was then rebranded as Dialpad with backing from Google Ventures.

http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/inventor-of-google-voice-n...

They also stripped out many of the amazing features from Grand Central and then left Google Voice to rot for years, slowly degrading.

How they handled Voice (and so many other services) has moved me from being a huge Google fan to someone who immediately starts looking for a replacement when Google buys a company whose services I use. It's almost a guarantee that they'll lose interest in running a service once something else new and shiny comes along.

> I've already told all my friends to forget my Google Voice number.

Why didn't you migrate your GV number? That seems a lot less painful than telling everyone to update your contact information.

This is a nerve-wracking process as there's little to no feedback on how this process is progressing, but it does work! I migrated my Google Voice number, which was long since my primary, out of Google Voice over to my cell carrier about a year ago.

I have this problem at both places where I work, but with gmail. In both companies, the gmail account was registered under the business name (=paperwork name), but the trading name (=public name) is different. So you have to train your users to log in with the business name, even though that's the only time it's ever seen by anyone except the lawyers.

Then you have the problem of emails going out under that name instead of the trading name - while the aliases generally work well, you have to train users in setting their accounts properly. I've contacted gmail support about switching over names, but their response was "it'll take around three days, and you may not be able to access email for that time", sprinkled with a tone of "it'll probably work without a hitch".

Yeah, you try telling the business side staff that they might not have emails for three days in a busy place... unfortunately I was too spooked to proceed, so can't vouch that it works :)

I was never confident enough in Google Voice (because of the issues mentioned above) to port my AT&T number to Google Voice, so many people had both numbers for me.

I boosted my Google Voice number out of Google Voice and into T-Mobile.

Took like 30 minutes.

Secondly, the Google Hangouts app had effectively replaced Google Voice for years. I think picture messages worked there no problem.

That's about where I am with this. I got started with GV back when carriers were charging $0.25/each to send or receive texts, and eventually paid Google $20 to port my old AT&T number into their system.

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.

I'll send this along to the one friend I still know using Google Voice though. I'm sure he'll be excited, he was just complaining about something the other day and I was nudging him toward bailing.

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.

I still use GV daily, but only for voice -- it's basically my craigslist number.

But it gets 4-5 spam calls a day. This varies greatly, and I block them regularly, but I wish I could just push a button and have it blocked while screening the call. My GV number is rather public, considered a business number, and is therefore on every spam list in the US.

I've been tempted to port the number over to my VOIP provider, but I don't really trust their SMS integration any more than Google's. And no call screening.

I was a die-hard Google user/fanboy until about a year and a half ago. I was a Fi user, Voice user (before Fi), Hangouts, Nexus buyer, you name it (I even had a Google TV and almost bought an OnHub). I bailed on it all when I realized that Google has absolutely no long-term vision or desire to support what they produce. I went to an iPhone and despite Apple's warts, it's a night-and-day experience. I'll never again trust Google products.

Frankly, I can't understand how Google is so chaotic. Perhaps it's the organization, which looks more like a conglomerate than a cohesive corporation with a clear vision.

They release products, only to abandon many of them without a clear reason (like Google Talk). Or they release two products that should be one instead (Android & ChromeOS, or Allo & Duo).

The Google Talk fiasco got me particularly disenchanted. A beautiful, open, standards-compliant product (they even helped extending XMPP with Jingle!) gets replaced by a proprietary mess like Hangouts.

This: "they release two products that should be one instead (Android & ChromeOS)"... I've been thinking the same exact thing. Google basically split the ecosystem in half...devs have to unnecessary build seperate apps for each (unless they are using a cross platform engine).

Not really... chromeos is the bare minimum linux environment to run a chrome browser on laptop hardware. Android is some frankenstein of java IDE to develop phone software.

They might-should-be the same, but they're fundamentally very different roots.

Actually, I'm agreeing with you... Google never really should have done Android but rather skipped directly to making Chrome OS for phones.

A major tenant of Chrome is the rolling update model, nobody has ever got the android vendors to do anything slightly like that. My Moto E gen2 got 1 year of updates that's it.

If chromeOS is the native eco, why is everyone talking about rolling chrome into Android and not the other way around?

Because Android is the big dog. Android can and very well may eat the world. It's a very easy distro to abuse.

Chromeos on the other hand is a very well-thought-out distro that is extremely simple and low-level, enough that it could easily form the basis of a great OS like Android

Back at the time phones hadn't scaled up enough. Remember how horrid early android (and iphones) were? I actually skipped the first generation entirely (and only got my first smart phone because it would be better than my existing phone and have GPS navigation as it's killer app).

I'm going to take a slightly controversial point of view and say: Android should have been ported to chromeos.

Newer phones should've shipped with the ping-pong update system, and the secure permissions system that permeates Linux.

Instead we're left with, what is really 75% a hack, Android. The update system sucks. The "recompiling" of app sucks. The permissions system sucks. The bloat really sucks. I am pretty sure my Nexus One was more responsive than my last Nexus phone, or any of the competition (which also, despite Google's best (awful) efforts have deviated in user experience greatly).

Google, once a golden god of the entire computer/software industry has fallen so far. It's really depressing. I wonder if it is even possible for a business to succeed the way Google used to and be profitable.

It's only a matter of time before someone eats their lunch, just the same as Microsoft. In 15 years $COMPANY will dominate and we'll be in the same spot.

The one-two punch of killing Google Talk and Google Reader in quick succession really hurt my confidence in Google. (Wave too, to a lesser extent.)

Wave I still miss. It was like it didn't go gangbusters straight away so google binned it off. Any it only didn't work because of the stupid JS hijacked chat scroller, where was its promise as a new chat protocol.

I've said before that there is probably an interesting alternate universe out there was G+ was built on top of Talk, Reader, and Wave instead of replacing those three. They really did throw out several babies in trying to throw out their over-silo-ed bathwater. One can only imagine the world in which the UX work applied to the G+ walled garden Facebook clone effort had instead been used to polish (a federation-capable) Wave and make it a consumer friendly product...

Likely because of their "20% personal project time" policy.

As best I recall, ChromeOS started as a personal project to see if one could build a OS around a web browser (and Google already had one handy).

On top of this Android didn't start within Google. And Rubin ran it as his own fief. Supposedly he insisted that all Android devices come equipped with a mobile radio, and thus Google would not certify WiFi only tablet devices.

A lot of other companies have this policy (Google didn’t invent it) and aren’t in that kind of mess.

It's the promotion system. People are incentivized to work 2y on a project, launch, get promoted, move on.

Coupled with no clear strategy other than "we need the next toothbrush" you get what you see.

"I think we could get them to brush their tongues."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brU_Pp-20g0

>> Frankly, I can't understand how Google is so chaotic.

I'd love an open and honest answer from someone up high in the org chart at Google on that. Better yet, just an acknowledgement of it and how they're going to stop doing this in the future. If they were a startup with 200 employees under the age of 30 I'd understand it, but they're obviously waaaaay beyond that stage.

Hell, at this point I would settle for some closure on "what the hell did you mean by 'more wood behind fewer arrows' in 2011 when you began the process of mass project shutdown?!... that's not really how arrows work :/".

More wood = bigger bow. Shoot fewer arrows harder, i.e. more resources behind fewer projects, i.e. quality over quantity.

THANK YOU! All of the other explanations I'd come across have thought they meant to shoot fewer, but heavier, arrows :/.

The real problem seems to be inability to aim. Google fired a ballista at Facebook with G+ and missed completely.

Yeah the smart thing would have been to acknowledge that you arent FB and dont need to be FB and to focus on areas that are underserved rather than trying to semi repeat what they have done

I read an essay on HN few weeks ago which said that the problem with G+ was that the higher mgmt at Google thought FB is famous because of a nicely designed product (rather than network effect), so they released a good product G+, it is somewhat a good product but it missed the train. Plus it has circles, it isn't intuitive.

I actually like G+ in principle. They already had the option to create a basic profile for your Google account which was good for those of us who already used Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Maps, etc. from them. I think they figured they had all of the pieces to make a "better Facebook" and compete in that space, but as you say, network effects are strong.

I know a ton of people who set up a G+ profile and I found both the web version and mobile app to be superior to Facebook's offering. Plus they had better image hosting and they had good text/video chat before FB updated theirs.

But in the end it comes down to critical mass of users (and particularly, non-early-adopters) on Facebook. You might get your other peers to try out a new service if you're into trying out new sites/services but unless you get everyone to make (and use) a profile the way most people seem to at least have a Facebook account, you're stuck maintaining two profiles on two sites and switching between them depending on who you want to share that update or photo or link with.

In the end it didn't matter if they had a modestly better site or mobile app because nobody wanted to post to two sites. And since, unlike email, these things don't operate on any sort of standard protocol, you can't just switch your client and let grandma keep using her old one so it fizzled as a FB competitor.

(I still use it for several niche interest groups though. Also I think circles are vastly superior to whatever Facebook has for granular control of who you share something with.)

Even I love G+ on principle, but that's the point, in principle. The problem with G+ goes deep, first of all, they just assumed that a network gets traction because of beautiful UI, it is not the case, if you look at facebook's growth, it started as a way to talk and later as a dev platform, because of farmville and games like that they get a lot of traffic, so essentially facebook means different things to different people.

When fb came into existence there wasn't much of a competitor to it, so they focused on making it easy to use and stuff, later, when g+ was being created they misread the entire picture. At that point fb had become a platform or was becoming a platform. Currently, FB has different users, some use it as a buy sell group, some for messenger, some for playing games (APIs) etc

g+ didn't focus on good things, just beautiful UI doesn't mean you win, you have to differentiate yourself, they should have gone this way, start a private beta, build a terrific API for developers, so devs will flock to your platform and build apps on it, plus the circles stuff, it is great for geeks like us, but not so much for my grandma, who doesn't even know what google means. Plus, g+ takes an awfully large amount of time to load on slow network. Overall. Plus they don't have an end vision.

People high up are aware of it; nobody seems competent enough (at management) to do anything about it.

They don't care. You as a user (for Google) ain't a customer, you're the product. This is most starkly clear in their customer service. Most of their free products don't even have one and refer to the Google forums. Meanwhile AdWords, AdSense etc. customer service is top notch.

What pisses me off most is that there is no clear alternative if you want to keep your data portable between multiple brands/devices. Microsoft often works poorly. Apple only works on Apple. The alternative is a hodgepodge of services (SimpleNote, HERE maps, EverNote, etc) that requires tons of accounts.

You underestimate how stultifying size can be. When I was at Google, pretty much everyone cared about how the internal incentives were screwed up. There were a lot of attempts at changing structure of promotion and career development, but nobody knows how to do it. To be fair, I'm not aware of any entities of that size who don't have the same problem of with balancing the need for centralization with keeping bright workers motivated and growing.

Why not just place a product manager above each product (Gmail, YouTube, Play Music, etc. etc.) that each report to the master manager who's only job is basically to unify all the services and make them work together in a nice way. He would be the one to force everyone to use the same animations, same icons, same conventions etc.. honestly I never understand how companies with millions of dollars can't come up with the simple fix of 'give an experienced person total authority'.

People lower down are aware of it too. It's bonkers.

Stupid theory: It is fun working on projects, it is not fun supporting projects.

The problem with this idea is that once the project becomes a product or services of Google's, then it is supported by official paid working hours of its employees.

Putting together what a bunch of different people have said, it's not just this (although it's this too). It's that you get promoted by producing a high profile, popular product. After which you've been promoted and you're working on something else, and so the product you got promoted for gets neglected, languishes for a bit and then dies.

That is the bane of a large company. A product that would've been successful user-count-wise and revenue-wise for a smallish startup starts looking like a failure when you operate in billions of users and tens of billions of revenue.

It's not that someone internally calls it out as a failure, but the constant pressure to compete for scarce resources (department budgets and developers in Google's case) encourages the internal politicking and resource wars. If YouTube or Search or Android is considered top priority at the moment, it's very unlikely some project like Google Voice or Google Talk have any kind of leverage in defending their budgets and/or teams.

Same happened to me a long time ago. This is kind of why I think "apple is dead" is a little early...

I've never had an eyePhone and switch to Android from Palm's WebOS. But for years I've always used 3rd party ROMS (Cyanogen mostly).

Google has a vested interest in not fixing Android's brokenness. They make a lot of money off phones that needs to be replaced every 2 years. With their strict control over OHA, they can easily mandate PC style platform standards to reduce e-waste, fight planned obsolescence and offer real security updates:

http://penguindreams.org/blog/android-fragmentation/

But they don't. I feel like I'm through, but I don't want an Apple phone either. Ubuntu Mobile has no device support and Plasma only supports two devices (neither with an SDCard option). I wish we had real open hardware :(

>They make a lot of money off phones that needs to be replaced every 2 years.

No... they really don't. They make a lot of money off search traffic and the app store. Android licensing amounts to approximately $0.75 per handset. That's not even a rounding error on their balance sheet, and SURELY not something to "intentionally break android" over. Broken android is a great way to drive people to other platforms. There's nothing to be gained for them in that.

more to the point, why do you think they released the Pixel line-up? They got sick of vendors screwing up Android by skinning every premium handset on the market (and skins are the primary source of broken garbage). And in that endeavor they've been wildly successful. The pixel is by far the best android handset I've ever owned. You pay for it, but it's worth it if you like android.

Okay, sure not off direct licensing of the OS. But total revenues are $31 billion. That's a significant number on their balance sheet.

http://www.androidauthority.com/how-does-google-make-money-f...

The Pixel doesn't have an sdcard slot, which is a deal breaker for me. (I don't rent my music, so I have a 200GB micosd card with my collection on it). Even their 128GB model simply won't cut it.

You're now making a completely different argument. You started out claiming they intentionally break android to force you to upgrade every 2 years. Now you're pointing out they make a ton of money off android from revenues and search... which is exactly what I said. And not at all what you said.

I'm not sure what to tell you on the sdcard slot or how it applies to the discussion. I simply said the Pixel is a clear example of the rest of the android ecosystem not living up to Google's expectations of a premium phone. There will NEVER be a phone that is all things to all people, if an sdcard is a dealbreaker for you, don't buy one. I think it's ridiculous to claim you need 200GB of songs on your phone, but that's your choice. Of course, google will let you upload 50,000 songs for free over google music, so even that excuse doesn't hold water, but I'm sure you'll find another reason to complain.

> Of course, google will let you upload 50,000 songs for free over google music, so even that excuse doesn't hold water, but I'm sure you'll find another reason to complain.

I mean, not OP here, but my music library is ~140 GB, and I don't think it's unreasonable to want to have that available without internet access. I run with a 64gb iPhone, so I'm definitely not the guy arguing for massive SD cards on everything, but I don't think you can say it's totally ridiculous to have a use case for that much storage.

They know what they are doing. The whole point is to get you to use their cloud services. But now, if you are a Project Fi user, they are charging for data access to your own content you upload to Play Music.

So now I am back to managing music files on my device and changing them out and feeling like I jumped 10 years back to the past.

Right, which is why in every google app they give you the option to cache songs offline, and set your phone to only play streaming music while on wifi. They're TOTALLY trying to get you to spend more on data - which they make basically nothing off of. That's as ridiculous as saying they intentionally break android to have you buy a new phone to make the whopping .75 per handset.

And yet the Pixel is itself a custom skin of Android.

Google Assistant? Not available on my Nexus 5X, which I received less than a year ago. Search button behaves differently, Allo behaves differently, "night mode" removed Nexus 5X build and added to Pixel build.

I'm upset because I thought switching to a Google-designed Android phone would rescue me from fragmentation and give me access to the best, cleanest Android experience.

Then they released the Pixel and removed a feature from my phone and fragmented their own operating system's features to differentiate a new device.

That's not a custom skin... it's an app. And while I can understand complaining they didn't enable it on the 5x, if you REALLY want it, it's extremely easy to enable on a 5x.

I've used it exactly 1 time, and if my choices were a 5x or a Pixel and that was the only feature I cared about, I wouldn't spend the money in a million years to enable it.

Allo is useless to me, so I guess I don't really have any comments there. No desktop app? No multi-device? I'll stick with hangouts.

None of the things you mentioned would be worth upgrading for. And I REALLY don't think you're missing anything. The camera and the build quality are what make the pixel awesome. Assistant, night mode, and allo functioning slightly differently don't even enter into the equation on the price hike being justified.

Well it is a custom skin built into the Google App. I have the Nexus 6p and enabled it by making a change so my device identifies as a Pixel to Google. There was no additional software installed and that was all I did to enable it, make a small text change from "Nexus 6p" to "Pixel XL".

> They make a lot of money off phones that needs to be replaced every 2 years.

Someone is vested in making money every 2 years alright, but it's not Google - it's Qualcomm.

> With their strict control over OHA, they can easily mandate PC style platform standards to reduce e-waste, fight planned obsolescence and offer real security updates

Unfortunately due to Linux's intentional lack of a stable driver ABI, the ability to upgrade Android depends on Qualcomm's willingness to write drivers for old chipsets on newer kernel versions, but that is a rather unattractive proposition for Qualcomm since they want as much demand for their new chips as possible. Qualcomm is a member of the OHA, but they are effectively a monopoly and I doubt Google could push them around.

Qualcomm owns CDMA right? I think they require using their SoC if you're in the US on Verizon or Sprint and are on Android

'eyePhone'? Is there supposed to be some meaning behind that?

I suspect it's meant to be a reference to a Futurama episode and meant to denigrate Apple somehow?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GklO9RIj0JA

I just switched from an iPhone to Android; there are pros and cons to both platforms. But one of the cons of the Apple ecosystem is how terrible all their (cloud) services are.

I still haven't fully bought into the Google ecosystem but I'm slowly move over.

I'd be interested to hear what issues you have with Apple's cloud services. I, personally, have had no problems, but am definitely curious.

One issue is how they nickel and dime you for storage space. I think you only get 5GB free and then have to "upgrade your icloud plan" even after dropping $800+ on a new phone, which you might want to back up.

Ah. I thought terrible meant "issues using the service." I do have some annoyances with how I'm charged for things, but I don't mind paying for services ($2/month for 200GB) that give me things without resorting to selling my browsing habits to the highest bidder.

It's not free. You must own an iDevice or a Mac to use iCloud and worse if you pay for one device you get 5gig. If you pay for 2 you don't get another 5gig

5GB is actually enough for most people backing up their phones. The OS, Apps, Music, Books etc don't count towards that 5GB number.

The issue is if you take a lot of photos that you will want to upgrade. But it is a small amount.

Photo sharing doesn't seem to count towards your storage limits either...

Importing thousands of pictures from my honeymoon lead to tons of duplicates. I tried to consolidate the library and a bunch got deleted. Luckly I backed up everything but I know not to fully trust apple.

i would not trust any apple service to host/preserve my images. just have had way too many instances where images just disappear. and afaik they still haven't really explained the connection between all the celebrity phones being hacked when they were all using icloud (if someone has a link that'd be nice)

Yes Apple did explain what happened.

http://www.apple.com/pt/pr/library/2014/09/02Apple-Media-Adv...

Whilst there was a security issue in iCloud it wasn't the root cause behind the "fappening" scandal. It was purely social engineering.

To add to this, Apple also doesn't bother to make it clear to users that there are limitations to backing up their photos using iCloud. You can get pictures out of Photo Stream whenever but that's only the last 1000 photos or 30 days. For Camera roll that actually stores the backup of all of your photos, you can only access your backup if you restore it to a new or reset device. If you get a new iPhone and don't immediately restore from iCloud then too bad, you either have to wipe your new iDevice or buy a new one in order to get to your backup.

The state of the phone is not synced in iCloud, its backed up into iCloud, which is not the same thing. That means if you have multiple phones, once you install a phone from another's phone backup you will have two diverging states.

Various features like "auto install apps I installed on other devices" want to hide this away, but they fail. For example, they will install apps I installed on another device, but they won't install them in the same position on the screen (something very important for me), and they won't delete it.

Also many apps, including apps made by Apple, do not use iCloud to store their settings and data, or use it inconsistently (e.g. only for data, but not for settings). One spectacular example is the messaging app, which doesn't show SMSs received on all devices (although it shows SMSs received on other devices before I made the backup, making it even more confusing). Of course, the messaging app shows iMessages. So some messages work, but others don't.

I have a similar story.

Google really had momentum. They bungled it terribly. I just use an iPhone now. It works, no bloatware, no bullshit, no need for useless tweaks.

I should have switched years ago.

I am a Google Fi user, the Pixel is by far the best phone I have ever owned, and I have zero complaints so far. To contact customer service, if I ever need to, it takes less than 10 seconds. I almost always have service, if I don't have tower service I swap to WiFi and have the same and full capabilities. I dont have any issues as it stands, though I have been using Google products since 1997 and might be a bit of a fanboy... =P

You can contact customer service right now because they're promoting the heck out of Pixel, and are happy to sink lots of resources into it.

Once it becomes a legacy party of Google (hey, remember the original Pixel that Google made? The premium laptop that they no longer support at all? I own it.), chances are they'll drop all that support, just like everything else at Google.

>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.

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.

> I got started with GV back when carriers were charging $0.25/each to send or receive texts

What? Unlimited texting has been included in every phone plan I've ever had since the first iPhone or earlier, before Google Voice existed.

Unlimited SMS has been the norm for a little while now (5ish years maybe?), but it wasn't too long ago that the lower tier plans for every mobile carrier in the US (not sure about elsewhere) had a per text charge, possibly after hitting a low monthly limit on free texts, or possibly with no free texts at all.

> every phone plan I've ever had since the first iPhone

Exactly... You realize there was a time before then, right?

In the mid 2000s, texts cost between 10-20c to send, unless you bought a bundled plan, which weren't actually that common then, and even then you were limited to usually 200 texts/mo.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/aboutus/mission/viewpoint...

I just use it as a secondary number because the area code for my real number is for so far away. Sometimes that would seem strange or suspicious, and I use it during those times.

I had a GV as the primary in my resume for years. Last year, many recruiters emailed me that calls weren't going through with a recording stating "The person you are trying to reach is not accepting calls at this time". I asked in GV forums to not avail.

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.

I still use my GV number for all recruitment. I hate actually taking calls so it works for me fine. I call back the ones I want to on my own time. ... I also hate recruiters. They're scum .. but that's another issue. /sorryrant

That recording isn't in Google Voice. Maybe you had a forwarding phone on your Google Voice account that was eating your calls. (Maybe you had an old one you forgot to take off, and someone else took over the number and it was doing that.)

I was told that by GV support, but I'm struggling to find any other likely source for it.

I removed all redirections from my GV number and tested:

- I called from my home and cellphone, both hangouts and GV ringed.

- I asked my family and friends to try the number and it worked fine.

- Then I asked a recruiter who was having trouble and he got the recording.

- Same recruiter called using his personal cellphone, it worked fine.

While speaking with this recruiter on a different line, I asked him to put his phone on speaker and try calling, I was able to hear him getting the recording...

I did all this before trying to contact google voice support. To me, it looks as thought GV is in denial there might be an issue on their side and refused to look into it.

I speculate there is something wrong in the way calls get routed to GV from certain providers, or some sort of spam caller filter is blocking recruiters who might have been wrongly reported as "telemarketers" by google voice users.

Edit: formatting and grammar

I was thinking the same exact thing; didn't they say they were closing Voice down in favor of Hangouts awhile back? I freaking love Voice, but Google needs to make high-level internal decisions about which products will get long-term support no matter what, and which won't.

I ported my numbers away after running into so many issues where services would use my native phone number rather than my GV number (placing a call from my car, the person on the other end sees my native number, even though I have everything set up properly)

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.

I have been using Google Voice/Hangouts for all my daily phone calls and SMS for 7 years now. Since switching from the Google Voice app to the Hangouts App, I have not had any major issues or complaints.

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.

Close to how I feel about most Google products or APIs.

"Hey, that's cool! But remember when they randomly killed X, Y, Z," etc...

At least Voice has lasted, I guess.

The fact that their little update doesn't have a comments/feedback section - and the state of their GV product forum - still demonstrates that they don't take this seriously.

It's a little strange to read accounts like this. I've been using Voice continuously for years now, and ported my old number into it. There were a few years when it kinda sucked (yes, I also lost group/mms messages with no warning), but since the integration with Hangouts (2014? 2015?), I've been quite happy with it again: group messages work, pictures in messages work, etc. Hangouts isn't perfect and still has lots of missing features and annoyances, but it's been overall acceptable to me.

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.

I'm in a very similar situation, and overall have found GV to be a net positive despite the imperfections.

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.

Right, as far as I understand it, several features are unavailable on T-Mobile pre-paid plans, including proper call forwarding, some voicemail things, and their cheap international roaming. It doesn't really bother me since I only ever give out my GV number. The only calls I get to my "real" number are wrong-numbers.

I wanted to do this, as I have the same situation: bad cell connection in the house. But the voice quality on Hangouts was so bad I had to give it up. The audio cuts out every few seconds, for example. This is sitting right next to the router with a Fios connection.

As far as I know, you can't call landlines with WhatsApp, iMessage, or FB Messenger. There's value in having a second number that is treated like a cell phone. I can register for accounts with it (Signal, Twitter, etc), and my real phone number stays private. During college, I gave out my GV number for privacy, but it didn't support MMS at the time. Couldn't get photos, and then they wanted me to use Hangouts & claimed voice would be phased out. It was a real bummer, and the Hangouts experience was strange, as mentioned elsewhere in the thread.

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.

As an xoogler, this tells me that the voice team is now staffed again. It also tells me that the executive team is thinking about reducing headcount and focus on hangouts, but still are uncertain.

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.

Why did google mess up messaging in the first place? It seemed like this space was ripe for their taking. (Basically, just replicate the gmail concept for messaging. Keep it sorta-open-enough and free enough. Seems like a no-brainer.)

I mean, what was the specific root cause?

The specific root cause is Google's practice of promoting based on product launches; it literally doesn't matter whether that product goes on to be successful. This practice creates a strong and perverse incentive to continually launch new products while discouraging iterative development of existing products.

I've never worked at Google, but... didn't Larry Page announce a full-blown program to fight that like 3-4 years ago? Work on features/depth rather than new products?

Perhaps it was launched but it literally didn't matter whether that product went on to be successful.

That is ironically insightful.

At least he got that promotion, though.

He can launch programs all he wants, but unless that trickles down to management, and the incentives are aligned to at least reward iterative development as much as launching new products, it's not going to change anything.

Seems like he should be in the power of defining the reward structure at Google though.

He should have a bit of say in that, yeah. But if he didn't use any of that influence, then it wouldn't happen.

Do you have knowledge or experience from within Google? or is this your own conjecture from the outside. My perspective as an outsider is that you are right, but I'm just curious if you have any special insight.

I am well qualified to comment.

I think the specific root cause is that messaging is actually a number of different spaces with different ideal solutions, which I think Google is starting to get even though I don't think they've yet actually nailed any of the subspaces (or even necessarily correctly not identified exactly what they are.)

Except that Apple and Facebook managed to largely nail all of the spaces with a single app.

Facebook has at least two (Facebook messenger and Whatsapp.)

Facebook also nailed cross-platform native and web.

I really like the messenger.com [1] version of the client.

[1]: https://www.messenger.com/

The Hangouts app fixed the missing MMS/threading issues. So if we've switch from Voice to Hangouts ... do we have to switch back now?

It's pretty confusing and there are so many services that won't take either of my Google Voice numbers.

Hangouts API is discontinuing, and the app is buggy as heck. We've already moved away from it and are experimenting with in-house solutions or looking for alternatives. Slack is too pricey, everything else seems shite.

You mean Google is discontinuing the API? (They had an API? They removed XMPP federation and eventually support, if that's what you mean).

The libpurple/Hangups projects for chat clients is the work of reverse engineering the existing Hangouts protocol (which apparently heavily relies on protocol buffers).

Yes, they had an API which could control and customize Hangouts https://developers.google.com/+/hangouts/

The answer to this is easy: copy imessage. If Apple had even a little bit of common sense they'd support imessage on windows and android and just charge a small fee of some sort to make money off of it. They're blackberry right now, they could own the market if they were willing to eat their own market share.

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).

In Apple's case, I don't think a lack of common sense is the problem. With the iPhone making the bulk to Apple's revenue, this is a textbook example of a "strategy tax" [0], and the thing about strategy taxes is they're really hard to overcome even when you can see the issue staring you dead in the face. It takes very uncommon leadership to hobble your cash cow.

[0] http://scripting.com/davenet/2001/04/30/strategyTax.html

After reading that article, it honestly sounds like the author is arguing against the entire concept of strategy, and would probably love Google's "I realize we already have two of those we put no effort into maintaining, but let's compete with ourselves by launching a third and telling everyone it's the future" anti-strategy strategy. Hell: what I want from Google is to see a strategy, as all I am seeing is complete and total chaos. What this article calls "strategy tax" would be better called "bad strategy", and I don't really see the alternative suggestions as better, as there are assuradely solutions (such as making your web browser a component and sharing a layout engine with the word processor, allowing the browser to edit and save simple documents in the format of the word processor, which is then essentially a paid upgrade to the basic editor) that make more sense than "let's sacrifice our high ground on what sounds like a bet".

Opening iMessage to other platforms would cannibalize iOS sales. I hear soo many people say they'd try Android, but they can't lose iMessage

I don't think "desperately force our users to stay in our ecosystem" is a very successful business model.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ibm

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ORCL

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CRM

In what way is Apple desperate ?

Apple doesn't make money through advertising they make it by selling phones. How does opening iMessages up to Android help them to sell more phones ?

Steve Jobs famously believed in cannibalizing their own sales. (Or, to be less charitably, he believed in that when it was convenient to believe that).

Whether the culture has carried over, who knows.

Even as an iPhone user, I never would have thought iMessage was even in the top 5 or 10 reasons to keep using the platform. But I'm old, don't text all that much, and have unlimited SMS anyway.

I imagine all the cool kids these days are using alternative data-based services anyway. Snapchat, the like. For us old folks, WhatsApp, GroupMe, etc.

It's not necessarily the experience on the phone that is lacking in other SMS based apps on competing platforms -- I see it as the ability to leverage being able to message anyone from most platforms be it conputer, iPad, or phone and have it all in sync. That to me is the massive draw to it.

I kind of wonder if there isn't more to this. Perhaps it's why Continuity [1] never fulfilled its full vision of moving seamlessly between iOS and macOS. Lack of support for third party apps, especially messaging apps, felt intentional.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Yosemite#Continuity

> I imagine all the cool kids these days are using alternative data-based services anyway.

Yes and no, because friend groups are fragmented across services and iMessage or text is the common denominator, especially for group messages.

Apple wanted to open it up, supposedly, but I read somewhere that they were apparently blocked by lawsuits with VirnetX (an apparent NPE/patent-troll), ongoing since 2010.

If you can find the source, I'd love to read it.

You may be thinking of FaceTime. Apple was going to open that, but a successful lawsuit by a patent troll (I think it was VirnetX) put a stop to that, because Apple had to change FaceTime to proxy through their own servers, which meant that opening it up wouldn't do any good.

That said, VirnetX has also sued Apple about iMessage, so it's possible there's something to what you've said (but I've never heard it said before that Apple was going to open up iMessage).

At least some of the stupidity must be due to how many good ex-Google engineers I've met - and how many lame duck engineers who have positioned their resumes and lives just to be hired there for status purposes.

Facebook has done a pretty poor job of unifying their messaging offering with WhatsApp. Long-time WhatsApp users may see this as a blessing but it's odd that you have seemingly competing teams owned by the same company putting out competing products, one of which has an outstanding API and the other which is basically a walled garden.

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.

I've been a Google Voice user for 6-7 years. It became more important to me 5 years ago when I moved to the UK and ported my mobile number to GV.

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 just ran into the "this isn't a phone number" issue with Telegram this morning. It claims my Google Voice (well really Project Fi now) number is a VOIP number, so I can't use it :(.

But... it is a VOIP number.

So is literally every phone number in the US for the past ten years. SIP replaced traditional trunking completely a decade ago. Cellphones have been using digital backend since 3G (though the voice transmission was still analog, for some value of analog)

There is a difference between a number managed by a traditional carrier using VOIP and a number from a free/low cost VOIP provider, especially when you are using text verification as a anti-spam measure.

>We find that miscreants rampantly abuse free VOIP services to circumvent the intended cost of acquiring phone numbers, in effect undermining phone verification. Combined with short lived phone numbers from India and Indonesia that we suspect are tied to human verification farms, this confluence of factors correlates with a market-wide price drop of 30-40% for Google PVA until Google penalized verification from frequently abused carriers

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.c...

I also switched from Voice to Fi and it's technically a VoIP number transferred to the Fi MVNO... Not sure why that fails the VoIP test, I'm paying for normal phone service but it's not legit enough???

I'm not sure how one validates whether a VoIP number is being used for VoIP vs as a "real" phone number but this seems like a curious edge case.

I ran into the same thing. From what I've read, Telegram use to take VOIP numbers, but not anymore. So there are older users who still have their Google Voice number attached to Telegram but new users cannot.

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.

Yeah, I had to create my account with my "real number", and because I don't give that one out, I have to initiate chats with everyone on Telegram.

> 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 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.

> 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."

Agreed, definitely came off as snark. As a GV user myself, paying might I add, my initial reaction to seeing that little emotion/comment was also disgust.

Not being able to text non-US phone numbers from Google Voice is my number one issue with the service.

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).

I feel like this is the area WhatsApp and Kik dominated: communicating with all of your friends across countries or outside of the US.

Get a google fi account and don't put the SIM in a phone (besides perhaps to activate the first time).

Then you get full featured texts and voice calling in gmail and the hangouts app. It'll cost $20/mo.

Does anyone have any idea why certain phone numbers are not able to receive SMS/marked as not US when they are clearly US?

> Are there any good alternatives?

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...

I pay about $10 a month for http://line2.com/. Been decently happy with them. They have desktop apps as well as mobile apps which is great.

Same here. I moved my number when I left the US four years ago. I'm back State side, but don't really want to port the number back to a "real" provider, but I've found some services now won't send 2FA messages to Google Voice (or any VOIP numbers for that matter).

I like how this story has shot up immediately to the top of Hacker News. Google Voice is beloved by its users, but Google hasn't shown love for it for (as they point out) five years. I'm glad to see the update!

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

I don't understand what's there to be lost about? Those are separate chat services? Or is 2017 the year when understanding that e.g. Facebook Messenger, Duo (video chat), SMS and Hangouts are different services?

Facebook Messenger, Duo, SMS and Hangouts are offered by different companies. The reason people are so baffled by Google's messaging apps is that there are six of them from one company, with no coherent explanation as to why. Even if I want to go "all in" on Google services, how do I know what to use?

Suppose we're using Facebook.

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.

WhatsApp?

(Disclosure: I work for Google, for three more days.)

Doesn't Hangouts do all of the above? The icons in Gmail are video chat, add user, voice chat, and send SMS.

Hangouts on my Nexus 6 has the same options.

Imgur link to screenshot -> http://imgur.com/a/vTlqO

Hangouts is abandoned by Google going forward except to support Enterprise customers

Are they replacing it with anything in the Gmail UI?

Hangouts does, but it's impossible to know if we're "supposed" to be using Hangouts. A year or so ago I received a pop-up in my Hangouts app that Google recommended I check out Messenger [0]. It also seems to be the currently recommended option [1] although I don't know why since, as you say, Hangouts can handle all those scenarios.

This has understandably led to no end of confusion among Fi/Voice users, including myself. [2][3][4][5]

[0] http://www.techtimes.com/articles/128591/20160129/google-ret...

[1] https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6062495?p=fi_tips&rd=1&...

[2] https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/project-fi/eg...

[3] https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/project-fi/04...

[4] https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/hangouts/AcKr...

[5] https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/project-fi/cB...

Hangouts can't receive MMS without special support from your mobile operator. Operators such as T-Mobile and... Google Voice... have been known to insufficiently provide that support.

All operators have worked fine for over two years. They announced this back then.

Okay, you can announce that everything is fine, but it just ain't so. I missed MMS messages on T-Mobile in 2016.

Google's suggested solution, besides twiddling cellular network settings and asking your friends to keep texting you until it works, is to stop using Hangouts [1].

[1] https://support.google.com/hangouts/answer/6318464?hl=en

I believe you, but it's something that isn't quite as easy to compare anymore. I have a friend with an iPhone on verizon that has missed MMS or found it delayed by days. GV is easier to blame usually since it's different than other services.

I'm also on Fi (migrated from Voice) and just ignored Allo/Duo/messenger etc. Has there been any official word that plain Hangouts will be changing?

Yes, features have been removed that don't fit the repositioning of Hangouts as an enterprise messaging app, and bigger changes based on that repositioning have been signalled as coming soon.

Hangouts does not ship with the Pixel, you have to download it separately. IIRC it was also not easy to find in the Play Store.

The Pixel pushes you to use Allo which is based on phone numbers and your phone's contact list, not your Google account contacts. If I want to message someone on Hangouts but I only know their email address (which pops up helpfully if I have corresponded with this person in Gmail), no problem. You can't do that in Allo - the people you message are identified by their phone number, not the fact that they have a Google account. In fact, you can't use Allo until you register your own number. So what is Allo? Is it SMS? Hangouts could already handle SMS and Google also released Messenger intending it to be your phone's default SMS client. The only entity you can message in Allo that doesn't need a phone number is Google Assistant, which isn't that great. If Allo requires you to be identified by a phone number, how is it better than SMS? If I change my phone number, am I just hosed? The best thing about Hangouts is that it let you message damn near anyone in any manner while being platform independent.

Not only are they tied to a single phone number, but my understanding is you can't run the same app on multiple devices. And that's my ENTIRE google voice use case! I want a number that works wherever I am, whatever carrier I use.

They're all separate chat services, yes, but the problem is the use case and differentiating features for each one isn't clear.

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.

I can understand some of these different apps :

- 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.

Hangouts is for voice and video too, not just sms, which shows you how overlapped/redundant they all are

It seems that the only reason for hangouts still being around is because some of its feature like group video chats are needed for 'Google for Work' (or whatever it's official name is) .

Yep, it is a mess.

I don't mind seeing a company attack a problem from multiple angles, but for messaging that's a big issue.

It's amazing that Allo and Duo were 100% clearly DOA and absolutely everyone but Google could recognize it.

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.

They just don't admit how hard did they failed in communications apps. Clearly priority and focus issues.

Hangouts was a brilliant service and a great set of apps when it launched. Google simply abandoned it.

Google's never ending iteration of messaging products comes across as schizophrenic. They have no focus, no discipline, no willingness to stick with an existing solution. I actually want them to just leave GV alone since it just works for me and now that they've turned this into a messaging product I know its days are numbered.

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.

"Google's never ending iteration of messaging products comes across as schizophrenic"

I guess Google needs a cigarette or ten.

I don't understand why they did this. I have used Voice as my primary number for maybe 5 years now. Hangouts was working fine with it. Now I need to decide between using hangouts or google voice? Honestly google, what the fuck.

Hangouts is now being marketed as a business product, they'll probably take it away from non-org accounts soon enough; perhaps this is the alternative.

I have literally no idea what products Google has in this space. I think I've used all or most of them, but they keep changing names, apps browser integration, etc.

Google still insists on using their terrible app-in-a-browser UI for everything (what do you think I have a window manager for??), the various extensions and plugins are inevitably crap, and the feature set is lacking. I can't mute a conversation on a specific device, I can't schedule when I'm on hangouts.. it's just a pain, so I leave my phone signed out even though we use hangouts at work.

Just to add a counterpoint, I've been using Google Voice for, I think, 7 years. I've never had any issues with it and the lack of updates always felt like "don't fix what isn't broken." It's gotten slowly better and better with the Hangouts app. I never really needed anything more complicated than texts and voice, but the transcribed voicemail is a godsend.

I had the same positive experience until I got a Nexus 6P and decided to try Fi (living in a remote area w/ only wi-fi). The new phone and services were outright hostile to Voice, so I created a new number and left voice alone. Really glad I did, but it will probably be a year before I start handing out the voice number again.

I've been using it for at least 6 years and have had a very positive experience. It's been a set-it-and-never-think-about-it experience for the most part.

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+).

You probably haven't had to use it very much, then. I've been using for as long, and it took so many of those years just to be able to finally receive pictures and group texts. (I think those two have only really worked for a year or two now.) When group messaging was broken, it was really broken; I missed out on conversation entirely, or received the messages such that each participant had their own individual thread.

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).

Google didn't "introduce Google Voice" years ago. They bought Grand Central and rebranded the service.

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/...

First they pushed me to Hangouts from Voice and now they're telling me Voice will be updated more often and I should switch from Hangouts? Also that one time you tried to get me to switch to Allo?

Get your shit together Google.

Same here. They pushed me from voice to hangouts for all the group SMS and MMS support. So now I have some chat history in voice and some in hangouts which is impossible to search through unlike with voice. Now they want me to go back to voice.

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.

There are tons of companies in this space; have you considered actually doing the "pay for the service" plan and evaluate these options? What did they not do that you wanted?

I search for a replacement every year. I have never found a near competitor. Vonage used to have a desktop app that was at least in the ballpark, but they dropped support years ago.

Feature set: Voicemail integration with carrier

Voicemail to Text with notifications

Voicemail specific to groups

Desktop app/Browser plugin

Web message interface

Mobile App

Long distance

International voice and text

MMS

Group

Forwarding

Could you please list some? I've looked, and I did not find tons, and I was actually less convinced of the quality of what I found than of Voice! It's gotten to where I considered rolling something with Twilio et al.

Agreed, I'm more confused than ever. I've been really sad to watch Voice die, and begrudgingly migrated towards Hangouts. Now I don't know what app I'm supposed to be using. Do I opt-out of having SMS go to Hangouts now? This is ridiculous.

I wish Google would make up their minds.

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.

The killer feature I still keep Google Voice around for is transcription of voicemail sent to your inbox, even for direct calls to your cell (non GV #).

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.

Same, don't want any of the other functionality but sure hope they don't mess this up.

The voice transcription has never worked for me. I've had my number since 2009 and I've never received a single voice transcription.

There are tons of companies that provide this service, and while it is likely that Google has worked on improving this since I last cared, back when Voice launched and for at least a couple years after aome of them had better quality transcriptions than Google (which were comically bad). I have friends who use YouMail. I use PhoneTag, which predates Google Voice. How is this a "killer feature"?

So, is this the death of Hangouts and rebirth of Google Voice then? They had previously been transitioning the UX off of GV and onto Hangouts.

It's absurd that consumers are left guessing which of Google's services are around for the long-haul and which are doomed.

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.

Exactly. Where does this leave Allo? Is GVoice + Allo the intended product combination?

Nothing is certain. There is competition among internal Google teams to get the attention of the top execs but there is zero clear vision.

Google is a mess. I can't trust it.

The question is: what are these top execs thinking?

When was this "a time", and did it include more than Mail, Maps, and Docs?

Yes, it also included Android, Chrome, Analytics, News, Reader.

Ok: I explicitly considered Android and did not consider it a product (though this was probably wrong of me), and I feel like Reader is disqualified as Google decided it failed and killed it when they should have used it as a basis for other projects (the thing they always do :/), but thanks for reminding me of Analytics and Chrome! (Is News successful?!? I always tried to use it and it never really seemed to accomplish anything, and now they seem to be attaching its fate to AMP, which is either going to win so hard they end up taking control of the entire Internet, or is going to finally kill it...)

Google needs to focus on the products and services their customers love.

Google Reader is the best example of this. People LOVED it. It was even a successful social network!

Was that a move from adoption to profit as the metric for success. Now they 'have' to maximise profit and search for the maximal mode of doing so, previously they were content to create useful apps?

As a Project Fi user, that makes heavy use of Hangouts, I sure hope not (as Voice and Fi are incompatible).

Who knows, maybe the Voice improvements over the coming months includes Fi compatibiltiy?

So is Hangouts the new Google Voice? The focus shifted from Google Voice to Hangouts (it receiving MMS, etc), and now it's shifted back to Voice? Why can't they just combine it all into a single app and be done with it.

"One number for life" ... unless of course you want to use our other service, Google Fi, in which case you will be forced to relinquish it. No improvements on that small problem, it seems.

You can port your number from Voice to Fi, you just can't use both on the same account.

Exactly. But, as I understand it, you can't port your Fi number back to Voice if you decide you don't want Fi.

You can. It's incredibly easy, too: https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6079398?hl=en

From the page you reference, it says that it may not be possible to port a number back to GV. Eg:

"Can't transfer Google Voice number If you don’t see the option to transfer your number to Google Voice, it’s likely because Google Voice no longer supports this number or numbers in this area.

Google Voice’s number availability changes regularly, so even if your number was previously on Google Voice, it can’t always be transferred back. If you’d like to keep this number, we recommend transferring it to another carrier that supports it."

This is what keeps my from signing up.

>you just can't use both on the same account.

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.

And if you do, you no longer get text-to-email or voice-message-to-email features.

I'm really happy they're showing Google Voice some love.

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.

Hi, sounds like you have experience with Google voice and international numbers. I haven't tried in a long time, but does google voice support forwarding to international number?

I've never tried, since when I'm traveling internationally I always have data and just use the Hangouts app. The important part is it's totally seamless: contacts don't need to know I'm traveling and I avoid any huge roaming fees.

Got it. Thanks.

Oh great, announce the fucking update that may or may not come this week. They already leaked a banner some weeks ago by accident that linked nowhere. Meanwhile I'm pulling in the 6th update in two months on T-Mobile DIGITS, which will hopefully be the service to replace Google Voice. Oh, and when DIGITS has bugs I can pick up the phone and speak to a person, get it assigned and fixed.

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.

Voice, Hangouts, Messenger, Allo, Duo.

Which one should I use, Google, for fuck's sake.

I'd say Messenger, because of SMS which is everywhere but also its compatibility with RCS. Of course, your carrier must support RCS, but most of them will eventually.

Voice is also confirmed to support RCS in a near-term update. Will be exciting when the happens.

My main number is in Google Voice, and has been since 2010. I've lived every day in fear that they would 'spring clean' the product, like they did for Google Reader.

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.

This week, anyway!

Long time coming! I use Google voice very often to make international calls (I was a Grand Central subscriber before Google acquired them). Their iOS app was just a design nightmare (ios 6 UI aesthetics). Functionality of the app was also limited. Setting section of the app was just passive, you can't change much and you have to login ona desktop version.

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.

As a current Fi user and former Voice user, I'm still unclear on the relationship between the two. Hangouts for Mac still rings when I get a phone call, but I can't answer the call.

I'm a fi user and I can make/receive calls and send/get texts via Hangouts on both my phone and on the web/desktop.

Ah, I think that I elected to use the native Messages app rather than Hangouts on Android for SMS. This may be the root of my issue.

I found hangouts on Android tough to use for SMS.

As a current Voice user and would-like-to-be Fi user, the fact that I have to give up my Voice number to use Fi is a dealbreaker. The whole point of Voice was to not tie your number to a specific provider.

The thing that really tees me off, and wasn't explained when I migrated my cell to Fi was that it both killed off the voice account and # that I had with that google account, but also messed up support for one of my other Voice accounts. I can't even install Voice on my phone to use the second account so now I have a Rube goldberg machine where that number forwards to a SIP # I have that rings my phone. I can't even get my 2nd Voice number to ring me on my Fi cell.

Their answer to questions is pretty much "of course they're the same system!"

Not sure if this is still the case... but Google Voice cannot forward calls to any Fi numbers. So if (for example) your business uses Google Voice to route calls for customer service, you will not be able to receive them. This was an unpleasant little "feature" when we made the switch to Fi.

Uber Eats thinks that my former Voice number (now Fi number) is not a real cell number, so it does not let me order. After repeated support tickets, they still assert that it's a virtual number and will not let me order.

Voice & Fi numbers are considered "call forwarders." Call forwarders are not allowed (legally?) to forward numbers to other call forwarders. Hence the issues between Voice & Fi. This might be the same issue with Uber Eats.

Makes me wonder whether they launched Fi to get their pool of phone numbers un-blacklisted because now some people have only that number and no others.

I am glad that I am not the only person that saw this headline and thought "OH NO" they remembered GV is still running. Updates on older services seem to be the kiss of death at Google. Lets spend a little money on an update, if it doesn't grow like (insert cool new thing) kill it.

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 didn't they just improve Hangouts? I don't know anyone that uses Allo and as far as I know there's no desktop client. I linked Voice to Hangouts so I could get all of my messages in one app on both my phone and within gmail. Now it seems like they want me to split everything up between 3 apps (Voice for SMS, Allo for chat on mobile, and Hangouts for chat on my computer) that fewer and fewer people are using.

Why on earth didn't they just improve Hangouts?

I'm a Voice and Hangouts user that would love to use Allo. Well, actually, let me rephrase - I'd love to have Hangouts have Allo's features such as the Google Assistant integration and emoji. Allo just added to the segmentation mess that is Google Messaging, who knows what is going on anymore.

I only use Hangouts for google voice, but I would prefer this as well-- I want one unified messaging platform that also handles SMS and POTS phonecalls. That was the promise of Hangouts.

We did a user survey a year and a half ago, got a flood of feedback, and overwhelmingly users asked us to invest in the Google Voice standalone experience. It didn't mean that there aren't passionate users who want the Hangouts version.

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.

Can we just get them to stop screwing with all the different services? I have tried for years to use Google apps as my main communication routes, but their reliability is a joke.

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.

There has always been a lot of uncertainty over the future of Google Voice, given the lack of updates. While this does give reassurance that the project is still alive, it puts another nail in the Hangouts coffin. It was widely assumed Hangouts would subsume Google Voice, but now that looks very unlikely.

But really? I live in Europe and I'm still not able to order a Google Voice number... and god damn, I tried. I move between countries very regularly, having a single international number would be fantastic.

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.

Honestly, I'm glad.

I signed up for Voice to use Voice. Not to use Hangouts.

> If you currently use Hangouts for your Google Voice communication, there’s no need to change to the new apps, but you might want to try them out as we continue to bring new improvements.

Oh dear. And here I thought that Voice was just abandoned.

I wish. Now Google is aware of it again, it'll be gone within a year.

Google has kinda proven themselves untrustworthy when it comes to relying on their services; sometimes, they just kill products off. That'd really suck for a phone number.

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.

So in the brand new blog post, they link to this page: https://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html

When you click around, you get to see icons and screenshots from a bygone era

Interesting. What's the conference/merge feature? I've never seen that. I've used the service since GC.

That's fantastic.

https://www.google.com/googlevoice/images/sms-to-email.gif

Somebody stop Mr. Google's-Communication-Strategy Wild Ride, I want to get off.

Google Voice is GREAT for non-profits. For my son's Cub Scout Pack and my kids' soccer club I paid the money to get permanent numbers for them both.

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.

Google Voice has been a life saver to me in more ways than one.

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.

I guess I can unlink from hangouts and go back to Google Voice? I've basically stopped using my Google Voice number(but keep it around because people still had that number) because the future seemed so uncertain.

It doesn't appear to actually have changed in the iOS app store as of this writing.

The web app is also still the same.

Anyone know of a decent self-hosted alternative? I ported my number to Voice after I moved from the states, but have been frustrated by the lack of support up until now. I tried running something similar with Twilio and openvbx, but that project seems to have been pretty much abandoned.

I'm very curious to see if Project Fi gets some of these upgrades as well since it currently uses parts of the Google Voice integration, especially the integration into Hangouts.

Yeah, I'm really unclear what the relationship with Fi is since I use Hangouts for everything. I wish there was more clarity.

As a Fi user (and the number was used from Google Voice), still Fi/Google Voice has problem that the phone doesn't ring even the call goes to Voicemail. Phone has no 'missed call' and suddenly voicemail is received.

This issue has been addressed a few years ago but still they never give any option to extend ringing time. What a poor service.

I think this is an Android problem and not specific to Fi. On Android when the phone rings every process on the device absolutely freaks out.

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.

Even Android shows slow responses, the problem of Fi is that the ringing time is just TOO short. really short. maybe 15 seconds in total? So if my phone tries to connect wireless between TMO and SPRINT, it has really high chance to drop the call without any notice.

And Fi doesn't give any option to change ringing time. :(

I still use GV, but it's been frustrating. I stuck with the actual voice app as long as I could manage, but Google was making it really difficult to avoid using Hangouts. As in, there were features you wouldn't get if you didn't switch. Post-switch, MMS and group texts mostly work (although it still fails whenever someone tries to send me a phone contact). Prior to the switch, MMS showed up as emails and it was annoying. They worked really hard to make it inconvenient outside of Hangouts.

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.

A timeline of Google's messaging rivalry with Facebook. Original inspiration from source [23], enhanced and corrected from [33]:

- 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...

Your search is hella impressive. Sure you're not working on the next Google Search competitor...?

Am very confused. Only after reading the comments I've realised that you can link Google Voice to Hangouts and answer calls there. Till now I had no idea how to answer calls on iOS as the Google Voice iOS app is of no use. I wish there was a clear strategy and use case for each messaging app available from Google.

Nice - google voice is the one google service I use consistently. One thing that I think could improve it would be a usable / documented API or something like federation with other messenger services - could probably get by with a rate-limited outbound endpoint which starts one of the e-mail conversations you get when using the 'forward to e-mail' option. I wrote myself a google voice app at one point and wasn't able to get something non-hacky working- it feels a little bit like the current service locks one to android / ios, whereas some of their competing messenger services (e.g. messenger / skype / whatsapp) also work on windows platforms- not everyone uses that, but I think it's good to have freedom of choice of hardware.

Google voice could have replaced twilio if they just got an api up. Years later, still no api.

This is very confusing.

Still no support for Canada?

I believe this is due to regulatory issues with the CRTC. Skype also has this problem when it comes to offering Skype Numbers for Canada.

In the past 4 years, there have been 7 updates to the iOS Google Voice app. As a long-time user (since the Grand Central acquisition), this is very encouraging news.

Did they ever stop blocking certain phone numbers[1]?

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...

I've been a Google Voice user since 2009, when it was initially launched. I absolutely love the product. It is perhaps the only Google product, beside Gmail, that I have been using on a daily basis since the past ~8 years. Initially I only used it for its voicemail functionality and later started using it as my secondary phone number and for international calling (Google Voice's international calling pricing is decent).

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.

They really blew it. Like many, I used GV cause I didn't want to pay for text messaging back in the day. I also was able to get a good number that spelled out a phrase relating to the profession I'm in.

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.

The writing os more like the old google, frlm the top of my mind from the google desktop search click through ten years ago: "read carefully, this is not the normal yadda yadda".

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.

I've been using Google Voice since before it was Google Voice (it was called GrandCentral before Google acquired it). I've been fearing that Google was going to silently kill it constantly because of the lack of attention. Guess this means it's going to stick around for a while longer.

Anyone able to confirm the iOS Google Voice app was updated in 2017?

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-voice/id318698524?&ct...

The update may not be rolled out yet -- still see the old version on my phone with no updates available.

> We’re starting to roll out these updates today, and they’ll be available to everyone in the coming weeks.

If you'd like to better understand the background behind the new Google Voice apps, check out my G+ post here.

https://plus.google.com/+AlexWiesen/posts/EEVjRbbKz65

Note to HN readers: This is a Google Voice team member providing some background information on how the new apps came about.

You know what this is? This is an attempt to cover their asses for forcing G+ that nobody wanted. I refused to ever signup for Google Plus and was excluded from Hangouts for a longtime and thus even though hangouts supported Google Voice MMS sending and receiving, that could only be done in hangouts which could only be accessed via a G+ account. That restriction was lifted and now they're bringing features they were witholding for G+ signups to GVoice b/c nobody likes G+.

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).

Great and timely news for me. I have been very disappointed with the iOS apps since upgrading to new high-res devices. The UI, the inability to search message history and the discontinuity of conversations were all pain points that had me in the past week considering whether I would pursue something like twilio + a self-hosted app or just give up on the niceties of web access to all my messages. That, and the fact that Apple now has messaging and call support (albeit only to other Apple devices seems to work for me) means that GV has been losing value and appreciation steadily. Looks like I'll be keeping it around a little longer.

There's someone very high up at Google who believes that Google can disrupt telephony. Fi and the lifeline of Voice are proof of this.

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.

I wanted to switch to Fi many times, but I have an iPhone and when you use Fi on iPhone, only t-mobile network is accessible and they don't have an app for iOS like they do for android.

Google Voice has been awesome for us with a little Obihai box. I use it every day to check on my mom (who has medical issues) and we have glitches occasionally but they are almost always cleared up by re-dialing.

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.

Over the years, I have sent the GV team various strongly worded reminders of the promises they made me.

Personally, I choose to interpret these updates as a their response to me. Finally!

Thanks for making good, big G. Keep it up.

Bug: (where do I report this?) Number A, Number B. A receives text. "B" is set as my default but I see A's message in my inbox. I reply. The reply is sent from "B".

Am I the only person here who is happy with Google Voice?

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.

Someone remind me again why Google Voice and Google Hangouts co-exist? I'm sure there was an amazing answer that got lost in the margin of my brain, anyone remember?

Looks like the iOS app is only available inf you're in the US - even if you've already enabled and used google voice on the web (or on a different device).

Oh thank GOD. I live in terror that Google will kill Voice. I _live_ in Voice. I dread that day.

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.

Wow, what a shocker! I used GV for _years_ as my primary number, but had to stop recently because the apps were so terrible.

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.

Has anyone been migrated to the new web version? I still see the old interface and it looks like the Indian Play Store hasn't received the new app either.

Fool me once Google Voice...

The fear that Google Voice would be cancelled soon has always been in me. (There apps hadn't been updated for a long time).

This news is a relief.

I'm actually surprised at the dearth of updates. The cleaner interface is nice for sure, and transcription in Spanish is great (yay internationalization!), but the post is underwhelming overall. There's just vague messaging about future updates. Was hoping for more of a splash (and better app store availability, based on some comments here).

Are there alternatives to Google Voice? I am looking for a phone number, web based interface for sms, vm, etc.

If anyone has received the update on their iPhone, can you say whether or not it now supports CallKit?

The Google Voice app is not a VOIP app (it just makes and receives regular phone calls), so I'm not sure how it would integrate with CallKit

Oh, well, that's disappointing. Was hoping it could take advantage of CallKit.

It could, as Google allows VOIP calls with the Hangouts app and gmail website. I hope they add this functionality too.

If someone from Google is reading this: there's a need for a business version, that has paid features: multiple lines with a single number ( "press 1 to talk to billing, press 2 to talk to support"), multiple numbers tied to one account, etc.

http://www.dialpad.com

I have the old google voice app as well as a google voice number, granted MMS didnt work but other features such as spam filtering is the reason I adopted for official use. I routed 2 numbers to each (landline) account and havent looked back

Facebook has recently added audio options. Google will invest more in voice and audio. It is clearly, for me, that we will see something great happen in audio as we saw before in video and photo

What does this mean for Fi users? I guess someone inside Google must have a soft spot for Voice, neglecting an app for 5 years and then resurrecting it is very unGoogly.

Maybe now they'll address the Takeout format to return a sane, digestible form of GV data, rather than the frequently-broken HTML form that it currently returns.

It looks like Hangouts can make free calls, but GV cannot. At least according to their respective descriptions in the Play store. That seems like a major downgrade.

GV could never make calls. It is primarily a call forwarding service (with tacked on free SMS and now MMS) which allows you to make calls to numbers in other states with no additional cost and make international calls for a low rate. You still need to go through your phone service; as far as your service is aware, these calls are going to a local number (the area code of your google voice number).

That's true, but deceptive. Google Voice itself can't make calls in the app or website, but Gmail (web only) and Hangouts (web and app) can. They're offered this service for a very long time.

As part of this they're touting much-improved transcription. Does anyone know if the the transcription system used for this is available for developers?

https://cloud.google.com/speech/

I just ported my voice number over to fi because as far as anyone could tell that was the direction Google was headed. Now this.

Q: Does GV have 'access numbers' that you can make calls via so that it looks like the call came from your GV number?

Not exactly, there are a few ways to establish a call and have your GV number be the "from" number

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)

International SMS support plz.

[edit] I guess it's not updated in the play store yet?

When Google does these rollouts, you can usually find the new APK on APKMirror [1]. (If you sideload the APK and it ask you if you want to upgrade the app then you can be sure that the signature matches the one used to sign the previous version.)

[1] http://www.apkmirror.com/apk/google-inc/google-voice/google-...

I didn't know there was a .google TLD. Scary.

Where in gods name are these new apps anyway

voice and gmail are really the only two google products I can't live with out. Just dont fuck voice up.

An extremely relevant (and timely) XKCD about having too many phone numbers: https://xkcd.com/1789/

Awesome

The guy on this page is, "Jan Jedrzejowicz." I'm going to hit him up on LinkedIn and ask him if he can ask his superiors about their focus or lack thereof on GV's future. And if they're not willing to give a detailed answer, then whether they believe their GV customers are entitled to one...

Is it still not supported in Europe?

It doesn't even show up in Google Play...

It's nice to see GV isn't dead (yet), but unless I can make it my default SMS app it's pointless - so I am keeping my GV number integrated into hangouts.

Cool. I use the app from time to time and it was really decrepit.

Google voice for iOS is garbage. I would never want to hire the engineer(s) who made the front-end for that app.

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