Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeffool | Hacker News Reader

I love Google Voice; I do. It may not be smart, but I put it on my resume and as my primary contact info. But at the same time, that you can't receive mms is just crazy. I mean, forward it to my email even. I'm fine with that.

Partial sidenote: If I were, say, Yahoo, and looking to do a few big projects, this is one I'd tackle. Google has shown people will use it if it's simple, but there's not wide adoption. Yahoo Phone could supplant GVoice and things like SnapChat in one fell swoop.

View on HN

> But at the same time, that you can't receive mms is just crazy

To be fair, I don't think I've ever sent or received an MMS. I'm pretty sure it's not that common, so most people probably don't really miss it.

I've noticed that a lot more people did it once iMessage arrived, which tends to compound the problem of being one of few non-iDevice users.

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand your comment. iMessage uses SMS/MMS. People with Apple phones can send texts and media files to non-Apple phones just fine. (And iPhones are a third of the market. That hardly makes you "one of few".)

Actually I think iMessage is in fact not SMS/MMS. I'm not an apple user so I don't have first hand experience. Perhaps there is an SMS bridge on the backend server to deliver to non-ios devices.

Really? You've never had anyone send a picture or video to your phone?

Maybe it's that I live in southern Georgia (though in a city of 77k) but I tried explaining to people a few times that "if you're going to send a picture or video, send it to my email." The reply was usually the same, and hostile.

"I don't know how to send things to email on my phone!"

"You just type in my email. Or choose it from the contact list you chose my number from."

"Nevermind. I don't know why you have to make it complicated." And this is from 26 year olds who grew up with computers and use them daily.

I could make myself remember to special-case you fairly easily, but I really don't want to have to special-case anyone. That's why I love iMessage--it's a progressive enhancement, not a separate app. When that breaks down, like when I can't fall back to SMS when sending from my Mac, I get annoyed.

Absolutely; I wouldn't WANT anyone to have to special case me. It's silly, and no one should have to. That's why I think Google (and anyone wants to get into the phone-number game) should be handling that behind the scenes like I presume Apple's iMessages does.

> To be fair, I don't think I've ever sent or received an MMS. I'm pretty sure it's not that common, so most people probably don't really miss it.

You do know this is the standard that is used for transferring photos via text message? Even my not-smartphone-savvy friends use this. MORE of them use it, it seems.

I put google voice on my resume also. It was a real relief in coding interviews to be able to put on a headset and have both hands free to type out code. Also the sound quality was better than a cell phone so I was able to understand the interviewers without asking them to repeat themselves and I'm sure they could understand me better too. FInally, cell phone reception in my apartment barely exists but a wired ethernet connection is forever :-).

I've had a few MMS messages forwarded to my email recently, but it seems to be hit-or-miss as that same person will send me an MMS while I'm standing next to them and I never receive a thing.

I think they're working on it.

I think MMS support is only available if the sender is on Sprint.

Ah, that could be, I'm on Sprint.

I fear Google Voice might tread in the same path of Google App Engine. That is, switch pricing schemes after widespread adoption. Like you, I use my GV number as my primary and feel one of these days I'm going to get shafted. I might need to port my GV number to my SIP gateway provider, yet I'm too lazy to replicate the interfaces that I like.

I know I am not everyone but personally I wouldn't mind paying to continue to use Google Voice + Google Talk, though I am in the entering-the-workforce crowd so I hope they keep it free for students at least since they won't be able to afford it anyway.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com