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Updates to our Google Voice apps

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Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#151

Post by nighthawk454 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #121
nol13 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same gripe I've had on iOS past, could never figure out if my response was going to go over sms, imessage, or email, and if email which account, so I just avoid as much as possible, and don't setup additional accounts on my iOS devices or ones i set up. Mostly to avoid getting "why am i getting email responses to my text messages" questions etc. Not saying it's hard or complicated, just hard and complicated enough fo…

Apple doesn't care if you can communicate with non Apple users. They have their iMessage population hostage. Those people can never switch to Android because they'll be left out of group texts. It's vendor lock-in of the highest order. Spectacular play by Apple, really. They guarantee switching to Android is painful, you risk losing business deals and messages from friends. I doubt it's legal, but for now they are ge…

Why would Android users be left out of group texts? I regularly message a group that has a mix of iMessage/SMS users and it's worked pretty well.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#152

Post by _wp3r »

I am glad that I am not the only person that saw this headline and thought "OH NO" they remembered GV is still running. Updates on older services seem to be the kiss of death at Google. Lets spend a little money on an update, if it doesn't grow like (insert cool new thing) kill it.

Internal investment in any established Google service seems to be a liability not a benefit, when all of a sudden the balance sheet is worse.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#154

Post by zild3d »

on_and_off wrote: post #66
27182818284 wrote: post #19

I like how this story has shot up immediately to the top of Hacker News. Google Voice is beloved by its users, but Google hasn't shown love for it for (as they point out) five years. I'm glad to see the update! So that's lovely, though overall the PMs and VPs need to reconcile all the apps with each other. A friend recently bought a Pixel Phone and was lost as to what to use. I mean, I can't blame him... * Phone's ge…

I can understand some of these different apps : - Duo : here is an app in order to make video calls. I am ok to have a different icon on my launcher for this specific task. Especially since it comes with great perfs. I just miss a camera icon in places like the contacts app allowing to call the person with either Duo or another equivalent video call app (skype) - Spaces : ok it is not going to work out but I can see…

Hangouts is for voice and video too, not just sms, which shows you how overlapped/redundant they all are

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#155

Post by wvenable »

baggachipz wrote: post #95
wlesieutre wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's about where I am with this. I got started with GV back when carriers were charging $0.25/each to send or receive texts, and eventually paid Google $20 to port my old AT&T number into their system. Then Google stopped developing the GV app and I switched from iOS to Android to get the Hangouts Dialer integration. With the Hangouts integration instead of a real GV app, they apparently threw away the spam reporti…

I was a die-hard Google user/fanboy until about a year and a half ago. I was a Fi user, Voice user (before Fi), Hangouts, Nexus buyer, you name it (I even had a Google TV and almost bought an OnHub). I bailed on it all when I realized that Google has absolutely no long-term vision or desire to support what they produce. I went to an iPhone and despite Apple's warts, it's a night-and-day experience. I'll never again t…

I just switched from an iPhone to Android; there are pros and cons to both platforms. But one of the cons of the Apple ecosystem is how terrible all their (cloud) services are.

I still haven't fully bought into the Google ecosystem but I'm slowly move over.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#156

Post by digi_owl »

nextos wrote: post #106
baggachipz wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a die-hard Google user/fanboy until about a year and a half ago. I was a Fi user, Voice user (before Fi), Hangouts, Nexus buyer, you name it (I even had a Google TV and almost bought an OnHub). I bailed on it all when I realized that Google has absolutely no long-term vision or desire to support what they produce. I went to an iPhone and despite Apple's warts, it's a night-and-day experience. I'll never again t…

Frankly, I can't understand how Google is so chaotic. Perhaps it's the organization, which looks more like a conglomerate than a cohesive corporation with a clear vision. They release products, only to abandon many of them without a clear reason (like Google Talk). Or they release two products that should be one instead (Android & ChromeOS, or Allo & Duo). The Google Talk fiasco got me particularly disenchanted. A be…

Likely because of their "20% personal project time" policy.

As best I recall, ChromeOS started as a personal project to see if one could build a OS around a web browser (and Google already had one handy).

On top of this Android didn't start within Google. And Rubin ran it as his own fief. Supposedly he insisted that all Android devices come equipped with a mobile radio, and thus Google would not certify WiFi only tablet devices.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#157

Post by arkitaip »

niftich wrote: post #126

A timeline of Google's messaging rivalry with Facebook. Original inspiration from source [23], enhanced and corrected from [33]: - 2006-02-07: Google Talk integration inside Gmail goes live [35] - 2006-09-26: Facebook opens up to everyone (not just colleges) [36] - 2007-02-14: (corrected date) Gmail opens up to everyone (not just invite-only) [37] - 2008-04-06: Facebook chat goes live [34] - 2008-07-11: iOS App Store…

Your search is hella impressive. Sure you're not working on the next Google Search competitor...?

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#158

Post by X-Istence »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #121
nol13 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same gripe I've had on iOS past, could never figure out if my response was going to go over sms, imessage, or email, and if email which account, so I just avoid as much as possible, and don't setup additional accounts on my iOS devices or ones i set up. Mostly to avoid getting "why am i getting email responses to my text messages" questions etc. Not saying it's hard or complicated, just hard and complicated enough fo…

Apple doesn't care if you can communicate with non Apple users. They have their iMessage population hostage. Those people can never switch to Android because they'll be left out of group texts. It's vendor lock-in of the highest order. Spectacular play by Apple, really. They guarantee switching to Android is painful, you risk losing business deals and messages from friends. I doubt it's legal, but for now they are ge…

If you unregister your number from iMessages, group texts switch over from iMessages to non-iMessage as soon as you send a message that has a member in it that is no longer iMessage.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#159

Post by sangnoir »

djsumdog wrote: post #134
baggachipz wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a die-hard Google user/fanboy until about a year and a half ago. I was a Fi user, Voice user (before Fi), Hangouts, Nexus buyer, you name it (I even had a Google TV and almost bought an OnHub). I bailed on it all when I realized that Google has absolutely no long-term vision or desire to support what they produce. I went to an iPhone and despite Apple's warts, it's a night-and-day experience. I'll never again t…

I've never had an eyePhone and switch to Android from Palm's WebOS. But for years I've always used 3rd party ROMS (Cyanogen mostly). Google has a vested interest in not fixing Android's brokenness. They make a lot of money off phones that needs to be replaced every 2 years. With their strict control over OHA, they can easily mandate PC style platform standards to reduce e-waste, fight planned obsolescence and offer r…

> They make a lot of money off phones that needs to be replaced every 2 years.

Someone is vested in making money every 2 years alright, but it's not Google - it's Qualcomm.

> With their strict control over OHA, they can easily mandate PC style platform standards to reduce e-waste, fight planned obsolescence and offer real security updates

Unfortunately due to Linux's intentional lack of a stable driver ABI, the ability to upgrade Android depends on Qualcomm's willingness to write drivers for old chipsets on newer kernel versions, but that is a rather unattractive proposition for Qualcomm since they want as much demand for their new chips as possible. Qualcomm is a member of the OHA, but they are effectively a monopoly and I doubt Google could push them around.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#160

Post by criddell »

hackcrafter wrote: post #44

The killer feature I still keep Google Voice around for is transcription of voicemail sent to your inbox, even for direct calls to your cell (non GV #). I stopped giving out my GV number, but you can set up your Verizon cell phone to use Google Voice as your voice mail service, and I love getting transcriptions to my email inbox of missed phone calls! The app update is welcome, as you still have to use the app to lis…

The voice transcription has never worked for me. I've had my number since 2009 and I've never received a single voice transcription.
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