It’s Time For Google To Let Google Voice Live Up To Its Promise | Hacker News Reader

It’s Time For Google To Let Google Voice Live Up To Its Promise

techcrunch.com

55 pointsstanleydrew21 comments

I just got a iPhone 4S on Sprint.

They are the only carrier to offer deep Google Voice integration.

Unfortunately and not surprising there are many issues with Sprint's GV on iPhone. If you want to use Siri to send text messages you have to use iMessage and there is now way to get your Google Voice text messages integrated with iMessage. Many Sprint iPhone GV users have noted the call quality is lacking, as there is a delay. Also, when you go to a Sprint store (since it's a new thing) they have no information. One rep advised that I port my Google Voice # out, in which I did and after doing so realized that was mis-information (lost my GV #).

I will miss GV, especially the SMS service in the cloud. Though I am curious to hear other readers experience. Are you using Google Voice on Sprint with your iPhone? How is it working out for you?

Why was this downvoted? I found it very informative and interesting - personally, I can't wait for GV to be a native option on the iPhone 4S w/ Verizon, though that'll never happen.

I hope I'm not out of line here, but that sounds like an iOS issue and not a Google Voice one. I mean, Sprint should have thought that through... not sure what they were thinking period there, Apple and Google aren't exactly at their high point in terms of their relationship.

I use GrooveIP ($5 on Android Market) to use Google Voice over the data connection on both my actual Android phone and my ASUS Transformer tablet/netbook (which has no cellphone chip at all inside of it, just wifi).

Granted, it would be nice if this were more of an integrated part of the OS and the Voice app, without needing to set up or use a third party SIP provider and it all Just Worked including seemlessly handling incoming calls, but there are some options out there now to get this sort of setup working.

Google Voice is a great product which could be so much better, it's pretty clear it's one of those things Google has not looked after or worked on much. It's also a complete pain to set up. Your average Joe is going to struggle to get it up and running and nicely integrated with Gmail. I've watched two reasonably techie people struggle to work out to make/receive calls inside of Gmail.

Note that if you struggle with cell reception and want to make calls over wifi then T-Mobile's UMA service - they call it "Wifi Calling" - is a good solid solution which just uses wifi as an alternate bearer for all your phone's usual capability. (voice, text, data)

I have my cell phone's voicemail use Google Voice and it's a huge improvement over T-Mobile's voicemail.

I also give out my Google Voice number and it rings both my cell phone and my always-open Gmail window at the same time.

If I'm at my computer with headphones on, which is most of the time, then I can make/receive calls for free inside of my web browser. I know people want to use GV for more mobile things, but I'm extremely happy with the way I'm currently using it through Gmail.

I used to be a huge fan of Google Voice, but I'm not so hot on it anymore. I started using it because I didn't have good at&t reception at my house. It was a godsend at first, I could actually get text messages without having my phone in a very specific place.

But as I continued to use the service...

- Not having MMS shouldn't be a big deal, and it isn't. Until someone wants to send you one. "Oh no, send it to my other number, sorry about that. Which number? Oh, you told me not to text there, so I deleted it." But then people start sending everything to that number, and you have to tell them which number to use for what thing. People hate this, and I don't blame them--it gets confusing.

- GV is seen as a landline, goodbye all of those cheap m2m minutes, you're now costing your friends part of their anytime minutes even though you're actually talking to them on your cell phone. This isn't a huge deal, except for those people that don't have many anytime minutes--because they mostly only call cell phones. I'd love to know whether this is a problem when you port your GV number to Sprint, but I have no idea.

- GV will sometimes drop SMS forwarding. I miss around 1 message a week (call it 1 in 1000), it'll show up on google.com/voice, but it never makes it to my phone.

- For several years, all the Google forwarding numbers (the numbers that you will get an SMS from, a unique number per contact that is generated the first time they send you a message) were in the 406 area code. This made it pretty easy to always be sure of which number you were sending to. Last year, they started assigning numbers based on any area code. This means you must be very rigid in how you add phone numbers to your contacts. It gets confusing when you have a contact with two SMS-capable numbers, now you have 4 numbers (Home, Work, Pager, Home Fax?). This is a big problem if you sync with Exchange, less so if you can assign custom number labels (Home GV, Work GV, etc.).

- Sometimes messages are delayed. Perhaps once a month I'll start getting messages delayed by an hour or so. This happens with cell carriers too (although I rarely see it on that side), so not as big of a deal as dropped messages.

- I won't even get into the lack of an API and the frustration that causes for those that choose to write apps that utilize or extend GV.

After years using GV, I now have a MicroCell at home, and I've switched everyone back to my at&t number. It's just less confusing. I've wanted to love GV so badly, but it just isn't the silver bullet that it is advertised as.

Maybe Google will fix Google Voice, but I'm not as optimistic as I used to be. :(

Did you switch your GV number to AT&T? Or did you use a new number?

I have been considering switching my GV number back to a cell carrier for a while, but I have heard/read that there might be issue doing that. Primarily with SMS/texting receipts, incoming calls from other GV numbers, etc.

I didn't port (and wouldn't for the MMS/landline issues alone, I think) - I did it all 'on top' of an at&t and an ipkall.com/SIP/asterisk number.

I take it you've never used the Google Voice application for Android/iPhone? On my android phone the text message issues you've mention disappear as there are no forwarding numbers and every message arrives on my phone.

I have used the Android app a little bit, the integration looks great on the surface. The problem (as I understand it) is that the GV app uses data, which means it uses more battery than just SMS, and doesn't work as well in low signal circumstances. I don't have first-hand experience of this though, and I can imagine for some people it wouldn't be a problem.

The Android app is terrible in low signal situations. When sending a message it blocks the entire app with a "Sending" modal window. I don't know how they could've fucked that up so bad. If you've going in and out of service you have to kill the app and reopen it to even get back to the inbox. I can't imagine why they didn't just show the message in a pending status the way the standard SMS app does.

I've only ever had 2 instances of someone trying to MMS me and when Google rolls out MMS support (it's coming, it's already here for some Sprint users), I'll do the same thing I normally do. Delete it immediately. Email them to me, any MMS capable phone can, but more importantly, use the email client so they're not super compressed.

Don't know what you mean with the SMS forwarding, but the again I use the native app.

I don't understand the bit about the phone numbers? Isn't the point that you just have the one Google Voice number and it rings your other phones according to your contact rules or such? People still use faxes (a bit sarcastic, but it is HN).

All that having been said, I would kill for an API. I'm thinking about giving koush's DeskSMS a shot, purely because it has an API.

I'm an American expat and I really want Google Voice to work for me, but sadly it just doesn't.

- International Call Forwarding - I can't grasp why they don't do this. I work around it by having my GV number forward to a US Twilio number, which forwards to my foreign cell. Complexity = problems, and I'm giving Twilio a bunch of cash I could be giving Google.

- VoIP Calls - I wouldn't even have the above problem if GV supported VoIP. Even if it's only limited to WiFi, it would still be a major plus. The tech exists (Skype app), and Google has implemented it for GMail and even SIP at one point.

- Buggy iPhone app - This is what really shows me GV is a low priority for Google. The app is buggy as hell, crashes, doesn't pick up where you left off when you re-open it, doesn't always display most current inbox information, etc... For such a simple app, it shouldn't be this horrible.

Google Voice has a bunch of nice features, and integrates very well with Android phones, but I gave up on it after dealing with too many cases of dropped audio during calls. (I have a very low tolerance for any service, free or paid, that screws up communication with my clients.)

I ended up porting my Google Voice number to a commercial service, Toktumi:

http://www.toktumi.com/

There are some things Google Voice does better than Toktumi (particularly contact management and Android support), but Toktumi doesn't drop my calls, supports VOIP, and lets me completely block callers that withhold their Caller ID information. I've been switching over to iOS devices, and I've found the Toktumi "Line2" apps to be better than Google Voice on that platform.

You can do exactly what he's asking for a one-time cost of $45 with OBiTALK. I used it on my iPhone while traveling in Europe to make several flawless calls to the US, each lasting an hour or more.

If you are logged into Gmail with voice then Obitalk will not ring when you get a call.

Google Voice will only ring one Google Chat endpoint. You have to sign out of all other Gmail and Google Chat sessions for it to work. It's a nice solution, but the Obitalk site should mention this limitation.

If you use an Obihai device, I highly recommend that you setup a new Google voice account for it, separate from your main Gmail account, for just this reason. You still get an extra phone line that you can make and receive calls on, and you don't need to worry about your Gmail session intercepting your phone calls.

If it's working via the Google Talk gateway, Talkatone does the same thing for free to an iOS endpoint.

It can't bridge to a physical device though.

I use it to call physical phones using VoIP all the time.

The latency of text messages is what killed Google Voice for me. You just can't rely on it and it's really confusing to ask people to text you on one number and call you on another.

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