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Comment by mikeevans | Hacker News Reader

My main disagreement with these is regarding Google Voice.

>If this is a texting app, why is it called "Voice"?

Because it's not just a texting app. It does voicemail and "makes calls" as well. Otherwise, most of his other complaints are valid and inconsistent.

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That and the horizontal complaint are the ones I don't really get. Horizontal doesn't really make sense as a horizontal orientation. And orientation changes with widgets on the home screen brings it's own issues. Take for example a home screen filled with edge to edge one row tall widgets. How do you resize that to fit into a horizontal orientation?

The Google Voice one makes sense to me. I don't have an Android phone, but the idea of having multiple texting apps that are slightly different seems amazingly confusing.

The horizontal support was the only one that didn't seem like a problem to me. Most Apple apps on iOS have horizontal support (Messages, Calendar, Camera, Photos, Mail, Stocks, Calculator, Notes, Safari, Reminders, Contacts).

But Springboard (the launcher) doesn't have horizontal support. That doesn't seem like a loss to me. If there was a second horizontal orientation, I've have to re-organize everything. You can't rotate every icon 90 degrees because there isn't enough space for the app titles in landscape.

A few other apps lack a landscape mode, but it doesn't seem like a big deal. Settings, App Store, Weather, and YouTube (outside of video playback) don't support it, but that doesn't seem like a big limitation.

Google Voice doesn't come stock with Android. You can install it if you have a Google Voice account. If so, you probably know which one you want to use for texting. For example, I'm on Sprint and have GV integration enabled, which means my GV number gets used for caller ID and voicemail instead of my Sprint number. If I use the stock messaging app (or any other like Handcent), the texts go out as SMS through Sprint, with my Sprint number. If I use the GV app, the texts go out using the internet (3G or Wifi) and have my GV number. I never use the built-in messaging app. I'm pretty sure anyone who installs GV understands the concepts behind it and chooses to use either GV or SMS for text messaging without any confusion.

Rotation on my home screen actually works for me (on gingerbread 2.3, evo4g). I think the author was referring to the apps selection screen.

I have a google voice widget and a weather widget, the rotation doesn't seem to make those look bad.

That one jumped out at me, too.

I never use the texting function of Google Voice. I do use it instead of my carrier's voicemail service, however.

I guess it depends if you are a GV user or not. If you route all your phones through GV and only give out your GV number, you probably only use GV for texting. When I use my carrier for texting, recipients see it coming from a number they've never seen before.

Yeah, opposite for me.

I've had the same cell phone number for a decade, and it's what I give out for personal contacts.

I give out my GV number for professional contacts. I generally won't answer an unknown number if it's coming to my personal number, but if it's coming from my GV number, there's a good chance it's something important.

Makes it easier for me to screen calls without changing the number all my friends have had for years.

I believe it's possible to migrate your cell number to GV, like you would with any other provider. I prefer GV here so that I can answer calls from essentially anywhere -- whether it be from my home phone, or from my gmail browser. When people text me, it arrives as a normal text on my cell phone, but also arrives as an email that I can simply reply to via the standard gmail interface. Voicemail also appear as normal messages in my email inbox, so yeah, there are a fair number of advantages using GV over your normal cell number.

>I believe it's possible to migrate your cell number to GV, like you would with any other provider.

You can, I have no desire to. It makes it easier for me to cleanly separate my work and personal life. Like I said, I give out different numbers to different people for this reason. I don't want a single number for everything.

All the calls get routed to my cell phone, but it's easier for me to tell who's calling and possibly why if they go to different numbers.

If I don't want to get business-related calls when I'm off on the weekend, I can just set GV to do not disturb while still being available for personal calls, etc.

>Voicemail also appear as normal messages in my email inbox

You can do this without porting your number. You just set up GV as your voicemail provider. You can do this from the GV app.

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