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Updates to our Google Voice apps

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Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#181

Post by tw04 »

throwthisawayt wrote: post #26

As an xoogler, this tells me that the voice team is now staffed again. It also tells me that the executive team is thinking about reducing headcount and focus on hangouts, but still are uncertain. Finally, it tells me that google still has no idea how to crack the messaging space, and has so no team internally that is taking charge but a bunch of teams with different approaches, all jockeying for executive support. G…

The answer to this is easy: copy imessage. If Apple had even a little bit of common sense they'd support imessage on windows and android and just charge a small fee of some sort to make money off of it. They're blackberry right now, they could own the market if they were willing to eat their own market share.

As for google: I have no idea what is up with the stupidity. What people want is simple: an app that works on the PC and the phone, that can do messaging that falls back to SMS if the other-end isn't capable of "data" based communications, and ideally has encryption as an option and video chat as an option. Hangouts was like 90% of the way there, and then for some reason they went insert offensive analogy here and decided to release allo and duo with half the functionality. And oh by the way, after the release of those two apps, Hangouts started acting goofy for a month (which I struggle to believe is coincidence as much as I hate conspiracy BS).

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#183

Post by spilk »

I've been using Google Voice since before it was Google Voice (it was called GrandCentral before Google acquired it). I've been fearing that Google was going to silently kill it constantly because of the lack of attention. Guess this means it's going to stick around for a while longer.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#184

Post by on_and_off »

zild3d wrote: post #154
on_and_off wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It seems that the only reason for hangouts still being around is because some of its feature like group video chats are needed for 'Google for Work' (or whatever it's official name is) .

Yep, it is a mess.

I don't mind seeing a company attack a problem from multiple angles, but for messaging that's a big issue.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#186

Post by jdeibele »

Google Voice is GREAT for non-profits. For my son's Cub Scout Pack and my kids' soccer club I paid the money to get permanent numbers for them both.

Now they each have a permanent number that goes just to voicemail. The messages are transcribed, sent to a gmail account set up for just that number and then forwarded to the people that need to receive it.

Personally, I have a lot less trust in any organization that won't put a phone number on their website. But I also understand why people aren't anxious to give out their own cell or home phones.

PS: It was $20 for one (because I transferred a number) and $30 for the other (because I requested a second number). The gmail accounts are free. It takes some knowledge to make this happen but it's a much better deal than $9.95/month to a voicemail provider.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#187

Post by fader »

mark212 wrote: post #163
colechristensen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming what happened is they used Google Voice to jumpstart Google Fi and left Voice around as a neglected old version which they actually kept supporting (whoo). Now Fi is settled they're turning their focus back to Voice.

no, they bought a company called Grand Central in 2007 and re-branded it as Voice. This was well before Fi. A couple of the key players from GC left to form Uber Conference in 2012 which was then rebranded as Dialpad with backing from Google Ventures. http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/inventor-of-google-voice-n...

They also stripped out many of the amazing features from Grand Central and then left Google Voice to rot for years, slowly degrading.

How they handled Voice (and so many other services) has moved me from being a huge Google fan to someone who immediately starts looking for a replacement when Google buys a company whose services I use. It's almost a guarantee that they'll lose interest in running a service once something else new and shiny comes along.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#188

Post by dpcx »

wvenable wrote: post #155
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 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.

I'd be interested to hear what issues you have with Apple's cloud services. I, personally, have had no problems, but am definitely curious.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#189

Post by knz »

fooey wrote: post #138
knz wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Hangouts do all of the above? The icons in Gmail are video chat, add user, voice chat, and send SMS. Hangouts on my Nexus 6 has the same options. Imgur link to screenshot -> http://imgur.com/a/vTlqO

Hangouts is abandoned by Google going forward except to support Enterprise customers

Are they replacing it with anything in the Gmail UI?

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#190

Post by pixie_ »

accountface wrote: post #116

First they pushed me to Hangouts from Voice and now they're telling me Voice will be updated more often and I should switch from Hangouts? Also that one time you tried to get me to switch to Allo? Get your shit together Google.

Same here. They pushed me from voice to hangouts for all the group SMS and MMS support. So now I have some chat history in voice and some in hangouts which is impossible to search through unlike with voice. Now they want me to go back to voice.

What the hell is going on at Google? Is there anyone with an actual strategy for anything? I thought about getting Google Fi, but right on their page they said if you move from Voice to Fi you can't go back.

I would easily pay $5 a month or more for a company that could give me a single number and not be terrible. I think if Google actually charged for a lot of their free stuff it wouldn't be so shit/never updated/abandoned/etc.. - like an Amazon Prime type thing.

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