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

Updates to our Google Voice apps

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 364 posts

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#291

Post by dtien »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #36
nemesisj wrote: post #17

I've been a Google Voice user for 6-7 years. It became more important to me 5 years ago when I moved to the UK and ported my mobile number to GV. It's not been very pretty. We were thrown a lifeline with the Google Hangouts app taking over for the absolutely-awful Google Voice app. One of the most frustrating things about GV is that for certain SMS providers, it fails the "is this a USA number test" or "can we SMS to…

> One of the most frustrating things about GV is that for certain SMS providers, it fails the "is this a USA number test" or "can we SMS to it" test (it's unclear which), thus making it not work with my USA bank accounts, and I can't register for Lyft, for example. > I wish they'd fix this, but what I really wish is that they'd make it a real product, make it cost a few bucks a month, and have a team working on it. I…

Agreed, definitely came off as snark. As a GV user myself, paying might I add, my initial reaction to seeing that little emotion/comment was also disgust.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#292

Post by _wp3r »

saurik wrote: post #219
pixie_ wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

There are tons of companies in this space; have you considered actually doing the "pay for the service" plan and evaluate these options? What did they not do that you wanted?

I search for a replacement every year. I have never found a near competitor. Vonage used to have a desktop app that was at least in the ballpark, but they dropped support years ago.

Feature set: Voicemail integration with carrier

Voicemail to Text with notifications

Voicemail specific to groups

Desktop app/Browser plugin

Web message interface

Mobile App

Long distance

International voice and text

MMS

Group

Forwarding

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#293

Post by joecool1029 »

Oh great, announce the fucking update that may or may not come this week. They already leaked a banner some weeks ago by accident that linked nowhere. Meanwhile I'm pulling in the 6th update in two months on T-Mobile DIGITS, which will hopefully be the service to replace Google Voice. Oh, and when DIGITS has bugs I can pick up the phone and speak to a person, get it assigned and fixed.

It's been around 3 years since Google started to scare all its users into thinking Voice would be shut down or merged with another service.

I need a working commercial solution and I don't mind paying for it. I'm sick of Google halfassing every product they work on that isn't Search or AdWords.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#294

Post by chei0iaV »

sangnoir wrote: post #159
djsumdog wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 abili…

> Qualcomm's willingness to write drivers for old chipsets on newer kernel versions

Or, you know... mainline them?

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#295

Post by EvanDotPro »

dnr wrote: post #289
jitl wrote: post #14

I used to use my Google Voice number as my primary contact number, but when development of the product seemingly died for three years without addressing outstanding issues with group MMS or picture messages, I migrated back to my regular cell number. I've already told all my friends to forget my Google Voice number. I've changed my preferences in every service I use to contact my regular cell number. Now Google is so…

It's a little strange to read accounts like this. I've been using Voice continuously for years now, and ported my old number into it. There were a few years when it kinda sucked (yes, I also lost group/mms messages with no warning), but since the integration with Hangouts (2014? 2015?), I've been quite happy with it again: group messages work, pictures in messages work, etc. Hangouts isn't perfect and still has lots…

I'm in a very similar situation, and overall have found GV to be a net positive despite the imperfections.

The only additional caveat I've found is that the proper carrier-level call forwarding to GV voicemail doesn't work with the $30 T-Mobile plan.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#297

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

ramses0 wrote: post #276
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This: "they release two products that should be one instead (Android & ChromeOS)"... I've been thinking the same exact thing. Google basically split the ecosystem in half...devs have to unnecessary build seperate apps for each (unless they are using a cross platform engine).

Not really... chromeos is the bare minimum linux environment to run a chrome browser on laptop hardware. Android is some frankenstein of java IDE to develop phone software. They might-should-be the same, but they're fundamentally very different roots.

Actually, I'm agreeing with you... Google never really should have done Android but rather skipped directly to making Chrome OS for phones.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#298

Post by Dibes »

rconti wrote: post #263
komali2 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think "desperately force our users to stay in our ecosystem" is a very successful business model.

Steve Jobs famously believed in cannibalizing their own sales. (Or, to be less charitably, he believed in that when it was convenient to believe that). Whether the culture has carried over, who knows. Even as an iPhone user, I never would have thought iMessage was even in the top 5 or 10 reasons to keep using the platform. But I'm old, don't text all that much, and have unlimited SMS anyway. I imagine all the cool ki…

It's not necessarily the experience on the phone that is lacking in other SMS based apps on competing platforms -- I see it as the ability to leverage being able to message anyone from most platforms be it conputer, iPad, or phone and have it all in sync. That to me is the massive draw to it.

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#299

Post by rosege »

yborg wrote: post #287
saurik wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, at this point I would settle for some closure on "what the hell did you mean by 'more wood behind fewer arrows' in 2011 when you began the process of mass project shutdown?!... that's not really how arrows work :/".

The real problem seems to be inability to aim. Google fired a ballista at Facebook with G+ and missed completely.

Yeah the smart thing would have been to acknowledge that you arent FB and dont need to be FB and to focus on areas that are underserved rather than trying to semi repeat what they have done

Re: Updates to our Google Voice apps

#300

Post by rdnt01 »

ramses0 wrote: post #276
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This: "they release two products that should be one instead (Android & ChromeOS)"... I've been thinking the same exact thing. Google basically split the ecosystem in half...devs have to unnecessary build seperate apps for each (unless they are using a cross platform engine).

Not really... chromeos is the bare minimum linux environment to run a chrome browser on laptop hardware. Android is some frankenstein of java IDE to develop phone software. They might-should-be the same, but they're fundamentally very different roots.

If chromeOS is the native eco, why is everyone talking about rolling chrome into Android and not the other way around?
Post reply on HN