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Comment by stumm | Hacker News Reader

There are a few gotchyas with this setup from my friend's experience when he used a windows phone and google voice via sprint:

1. Reading an sms on the phone doesn't mark it read on google voice and vice versa (it's like having pop email)

2. If your phone is off and you get a call the phone won't let you know you missed a call like the google voice app would. This is important in NYC where you're often in the subway and want to know if you missed any calls.

There might have been other issues but these were the two that I remembered off the top of my head.

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I used Google Voice with my Sprint HTC Evo for a while, the integration with the Voice webpage was nice, but SMS's seemed to rely on having an actual data connection for them to come through. If I was in an area with spotty data coverage my SMS's seem to get lost or not come in in a timely manner at all. I switched it off the other month because of this.

There is a setting to have notifications sent to your "real" mobile number as SMSes. I think this results in two notifications when you do have data service, though, which is probably why you disabled it.

In the GV app settings, select "Receive notifications also in the messaging app". If you compose or reply to an SMS through the GV app, it will require data, since I presume it sends it over the internet, but if you send via the default messaging app, it goes through Sprint like a regular SMS.

I just ignore the native GV app altogether (and disable notifications for it). Texting works exactly as you expect it would, but everything is also stored on voice.google.com. Using GrowlVoice on my Mac is a dream for texting.

You still need the Google Voice app to check (and be notified of) voicemails, right? Google Voice voicemails don't get sent to the native iPhone visual voicemail app, do they?

Right. Visual voicemail just gets disabled. When you tap the voicemail tab, it starts a phone call to your Google Voice mailbox.

All previous messages in an SMS thread will be marked read each time you reply, so it's actually not so bad.

That said, there are even more downsides: no iMessage, no MMS, and increased latency for both SMS and voice in particular.

I'm in the process of porting my number away from Google Voice now. It was fun while it lasted, but I'm ready to be a first-class citizen again.

I'm guessing you're not on Sprint?

The reason is, when you're on Sprint, you don't have to go through the "porting" process that you do if you're on other carriers. Your existing number stays your sprint number, but also becomes a GV number. Also, they now are rolling out MMS to sprint users. And even before they had MMS support, it's not like you didn't get them -- they just went directly to your phone and weren't available in your GV inbox.

The biggest (and only real) downside I experience is that yes, there is a lag (the phone rings several times) before my phone starts ringing. But it's not exactly tragic.

So with this Sprint and Google Voice integration can I have my text messages going to my gmail and to the iMessage app at the same time?

I want to continue to use Siri for many things including sending text messages. I'm pretty sure I can only use Siri to send/receive text messages by using the iMessage app only?

I did do this on Sprint, and I didn't like it for the reasons I stated. Google Voice numbers can only receive MMS from Sprint numbers. That effectively means I can't tell people to MMS me, since I don't always know what carriers they're on.

No, not so fast.

What you said -- "Google Voice numbers can only receive MMS from Sprint numbers" -- is true.

But if you're on sprint, you no longer need to use a "Google Voice" number. You just use your sprint number. It's able to verify that the number you type in is Sprint, and if so, it connects it behind the scenes to GV and disables any add'l GV number you're given.

When you do it this way -- the "proper" way to use GV on sprint -- then MMS pose no problem. ANYBODY can send me an MMS. It won't show up in the GV app unless it's sent by another Sprint user. If it's sent from another carrier, GV will ignore it and it'll show up, like any other message, in the native Android messaging app.

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