Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Introducing free voice calls from Hangouts

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 212 posts

Re: Introducing free voice calls from Hangouts

#121

Post by kilovoltaire »

Just in case anyone else was wondering what the most expensive rate is...

  Array.prototype.slice.call($$('td')).sort(function(a, b) { return parseInt(a.textContent.replace(/\D+/g, "")) - parseInt(b.textContent.replace(/\D+/g, "")); }).slice(-1)[0].parentNode
Satellite Service - Thuraya $7.25 per minute

Re: Introducing free voice calls from Hangouts

#122

Post by peterwwillis »

darklrd wrote: post #107
findjashua wrote: post #93

Goodbye Skype! You won't be missed.

Yup. How would Skype fight this?

Skype is available on more platforms, including Blackberry, Windows Phone, OS X, 'Skype Landlines', Kindle Fire HD, TVs, Xbox, Playstation, even iPod.

Skype is a standalone application where the only account you need is a Skype one, which is free, and isn't tied to any personal information other than an e-mail address.

If you've ever tried to run Hangouts from a 'non-supported' operating system / distribution / architecture / browser / mobile device, it doesn't freaking work. It's not designed as a proper stand-alone application so it simply doesn't work on platforms it wasn't designed for. Skype is a static application designed to run on basically anything.

Google appears to be the one lagging behind both Apple and Microsoft in terms of shipping free video calling with their platform. They have a lot of ground to cover in terms of user experience and getting users to switch from the established Skype and Facetime camps.

Re: Introducing free voice calls from Hangouts

#123

Post by gcb0 »

milhous wrote: post #59
chakalakasp wrote: post #20

This has been available on iOS for a long time, which I found to be really, really strange, given that you would think Android would be the platform where they'd want to put their more advanced features. It isn't half bad, though -- the call quality, even when the call terminates in an actual phone number, exceeds that of cellular by a good margin, due to what I assume is a much better bitrate being used. And it work…

Are we to assume that with this update, we can finally get rid of the old "Google Voice" app to do text messaging and playback voicemail? For my use case, I ditched my iPhone 4S last year and got a Retina iPad mini with a prepaid Verizon data plan. It's pretty good, though there needs to be better integration between Hangouts and iOS. For example, if I get an incoming call notification, it sometimes will not automati…

id much more like to have voice calls on the gvoice app... hangouts is mostly useless bloat for me. that cant even uninstall (buy a google unlocked phone to avoid carrier bloatware, only that now google is the carrier with bloatware and all)

Re: Introducing free voice calls from Hangouts

#124

Post by toomuchtodo »

kilovoltaire wrote: post #121

Just in case anyone else was wondering what the most expensive rate is... Array.prototype.slice.call($$('td')).sort(function(a, b) { return parseInt(a.textContent.replace(/\D+/g, "")) - parseInt(b.textContent.replace(/\D+/g, "")); }).slice(-1)[0].parentNode Satellite Service - Thuraya $7.25 per minute

Huh, I would've thought it was Iridium.

Re: Introducing free voice calls from Hangouts

#125

Post by vidarh »

cantbecool wrote: post #47
untog wrote: post #6

According to /r/android this also finally brings Google Voice into Hangouts: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/2fz6hh/hangouts_and... I haven't seen the update yet to try it, but am hoping I do soon. This is long, long overdue. All this said - Hangouts on desktop is still so much worse than GChat was - and GChat had free calls too. I'd type a number, two seconds later it would be ringing in the bottom right co…

I stand 100% behind your statement. I can't stand to use Hangouts. I remember when you could simply have a video chat plugin installed in Google Chat with HD feature enabled in labs and CPU usage wouldn't be a quarter what a video chat in Hangouts is now. I dream that they still had the option to use the older video chat functionality.

Video chat options in general frustrate me to no end. Skype - at least on Linux - have steadily dropped in quality over the last few years (the old cynic in me wants to blame MS for no particular reason). Back in 2006-2007 I used Skype video chats daily with few issues between the UK and California. These days I have problems getting it to work reliably within London, and have given up on it to let my son talk to his grandmother in Norway.

So I tried Google Hangouts. It's marginally better. But it's still awful, and odds are about 50% that one or the other end of just fails to work (suddenly wants to reinstall the plugin, or just plain refuses to recognize the camera).

It's just incredible to me that a decade after I had reliable, working video chat, things appears to have gotten steadily worse, not better... I have 10 times the bandwidth - or more -, for example, both up and down.

Re: Introducing free voice calls from Hangouts

#127

Post by toomuchtodo »

mncolinlee wrote: post #68
zaphoyd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do I not get a voice plan? (tablet aside) Nearly all decent data plans (in the US at least) have a mandatory unlimited voice/SMS bundled.

Several carriers offer them and the ones that do will win price-sensitive customers. T-Mobile: http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/mobile-internet.htm... U.S. Cellular: http://m.uscellular.com/uscellular/plans/data-only-plan.html http://www.popsugar.com/tech/Data-Only-Plans-26912644 Also, T-mobile offers free international data in many, many countries. This may offer a cheaper option than international voice cal…

T-Mobile has a $30/month 5G 4G data, unlimited text, 100 voice minutes plan available, but you can only activate at Walmart or on T-Mobile.com

EDIT:

http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans

http://i.imgur.com/5aQ7LRy.png

Re: Introducing free voice calls from Hangouts

#128

Post by lepht »

gonehome wrote: post #98
untog wrote: post #6

According to /r/android this also finally brings Google Voice into Hangouts: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/2fz6hh/hangouts_and... I haven't seen the update yet to try it, but am hoping I do soon. This is long, long overdue. All this said - Hangouts on desktop is still so much worse than GChat was - and GChat had free calls too. I'd type a number, two seconds later it would be ringing in the bottom right co…

Somewhat hilariously this change stops any of the text messages from reaching the google voice web app in favor of hangouts (the web app being basically it's only redeeming quality at this point) and there appears to be some weird behavior when texting people through hangouts. The webapp was the only reason I still bothered to use GV since it's felt like it's been abandoned for years now. It's frustrating how great t…

Surprisingly enough, GV for iOS was just updated:

- Updated user interface to match iOS7 guidelines - Bug fixes and performance enhancements - Support for Google Voice integration in Hangouts

Re: Introducing free voice calls from Hangouts

#129

Post by sesqu »

peterwwillis wrote: post #122
darklrd wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. How would Skype fight this?

Skype is available on more platforms, including Blackberry, Windows Phone, OS X, 'Skype Landlines', Kindle Fire HD, TVs, Xbox, Playstation, even iPod. Skype is a standalone application where the only account you need is a Skype one, which is free, and isn't tied to any personal information other than an e-mail address. If you've ever tried to run Hangouts from a 'non-supported' operating system / distribution / archi…

> Skype is a standalone application where the only account you need is a Skype one, which is free, and isn't tied to any personal information other than an e-mail address.

When Microsoft bought Skype, I seem to recall them requiring all new users to use a Microsoft account instead of a Skype account. That isn't the case now, and it may have just been a confusing installer at the time, but it's a concern.

Re: Introducing free voice calls from Hangouts

#130

Post by lmedinas »

peterwwillis wrote: post #122
darklrd wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. How would Skype fight this?

Skype is available on more platforms, including Blackberry, Windows Phone, OS X, 'Skype Landlines', Kindle Fire HD, TVs, Xbox, Playstation, even iPod. Skype is a standalone application where the only account you need is a Skype one, which is free, and isn't tied to any personal information other than an e-mail address. If you've ever tried to run Hangouts from a 'non-supported' operating system / distribution / archi…

Since when Hangouts or Skype compete with a product only Apple users can use? I personally don't know anyone who uses Facetime.
Post reply on HN