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Goodbye, Google Voice
itwbennett writes "The trouble with Google Voice is that the way we use phones has changed — and it hasn't kept up with the times: 'Fewer people have a mobile phone and a business line and a home line that might make One Number For All so. Text message costs (which are actually close to nothing) are almost always bundled into contract costs. Automatic voice transcription, while still a mean feat, is no longer such a magic trick,' writes Kevin Purdy in a blog post explaining why he's breaking up with Google Voice. The main problem is that, despite some very cool features, Google Voice doesn't play well with others — even apps in its own family. And it doesn't look as though that's going to get better anytime soon." I've been very happy with Google Voice for a few years now, and one reason is the transcribed voice messages, which may get hilariously garbled sometimes, but are almost always correct enough to be useful.
Is when you need to provide a phone number for verification purposes and either don't want to use your real number, or your are verifying several things and need multiple numbers.
Google Voice is not being phased out (yet) by google.
This is just some doosh on itworld ranting about junk on his blog.
What are those for? Send an email or shut up.
The google voice # is still great if your going to sell anything on Craigslist, ebay, etc. You have one number that will reach you anywhere and you dont have to give people your personal #. After your done you can switch it in a second.
I use Google Voice as my primary phone number. This is because (like Stephen Hawking), I am quadriplegic and unable to speak due to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease). I use it to text and for the relatively few "voice" telephone conversations I have (using my eyegaze computer which - via text-to-speech - "speaks" what I type). I use it for texts daily and for at least one vocal conversation a week (I use web-based video conference multiple times per week to conduct my biomedical and technology research business).
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Maybe it is a good headline because it caught my attention and drove me to comment. Being backwoods senior citizens, my wife and I use google voice all the time. No cell service where we live so we stay in touch with our family and our volunteer activities without paying for long distance using google voice. Besides, some of us less dexterous seniors need a keyboard to respond to texts. Google if you are listening, don't dump voice cuz some yuppie in a metro area has a bug up his a**
Is that you? To reiterate another poster's comment, this is just some dude's blog entry.
Seriously? WTF with the headline, Timothy? Is /. Into sensationalist, eye-grabbing headlines now? How about maybe only showing comments 5 at a time while you're at it? That should garner some ad revenue. That title is *very* misleading.
Some of the complaints in this blog were mentioned in a post by a google employee 4.5 months ago:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+N...
... rest assured, weâ(TM)re working to support SMS messages for all Google Voice phone numbers ... we are listening and working hard to make this happen, but we need to work with carriers and this can take some time.
It will take some time before Google Voice is fully integrated into Hangouts, and we appreciate your patience along the way.ï
there is also mention of third-party apps which, on android, use various methods to achieve VOIP through Google Voice on the handset, which isnt a feature that Google Voice currently allows (it must route your call via an actual phone call).. these apps have been warned that they will be no longer to do that by May 15th of this year..
im guessing that we will be seeing some changes to Google Voice in the coming few months... maybe even things that make this itworld blog post seem kind of silly.
(disclosure: been using google voice since its first year, wish it could be better... 'breaking up' with it over the stuff in TFA is silly, some of those gripes are silly)
I don't use it much. I would use it more if I could send MMS messages on it...
I've been very happy with timothy's editing for a few years now, which may get hilariously garbled sometimes, but is almost always correct enough to be useful.
To me, the underlying story is that Google is no longer as well managed as it has been in the past. Projects aren't finished; maybe those working on them got bored and decided not to be adult.
I've thought about and studied the phenomenon of companies slowly degrading for decades. Hewlett-Packard was already going downhill in the 1970s; the company was making data acquisition hardware that had an obviously unfinished design.
Fairchild Semiconductor was, at one time, the best manufacturer of transistors. The company began selling power transistors with epoxy casing. The epoxy degraded the transistors. It seemed that Fairchild never recovered.
Tektronix was a great company at one time; everybody in the tech world was impressed with Tektronix oscilloscopes. I suppose the good managers decided to move to other efforts. One problem was that Tektronix was not prepared for lower-cost competitors.
More recently, Adobe seems to me to be on a long downhill slide; the PDF file formats were a gift to the world. Now Adobe seems to me to be becoming more and more aggressive toward its customers.
Jamie Dimon of Chase Bank seems to me to be becoming tired of being CEO and making huge management mistakes for which there have been multi-billion dollar fines.
I use Google voice exclusively. It allows me to have a phone number separated from my service provider which I probably won't have forever (so I don't have to worry whether I'll be able to port my number over). It allows me to make phone calls from my computer for phone interviews and the like (headset/mic so I can type). It also allows me to text people without paying Verizon a dime for bullshit reasons.
-SaNo
I use Google voice exclusively. It allows me to have a phone number separated from my service provider which I probably won't have forever (so I don't have to worry whether I'll be able to port my number over). It allows me to make phone calls from my computer for phone interviews and the like (headset/mic so I can type). It also allows me to text people without paying Verizon a dime for bullshit reasons.
I use GV in exactly the same way for exactly the same reasons. I just seamlessly "ported" from one wireless provider to another a few months ago. Unlike "real porting" I could use both phones while I was getting things setup and switch my inbound call routing back and forth between the devices at will.
This article is just some hipster douchebag's whiny blog. I tagged this slashdot headline as troll.
Of course, you *do* have to worry that Google is planning to subsume Voice into Hangouts. That decision is so obviously retarded it can only have something to do with Google's attempt to make Plus get traction. Oh, and maybe someday GV will support MMS. It's annoying that those messages get blackholed.
I was convinced Google Voice was next on the chopping block after they canned reader. The iOS app hasn't been updated in over a year, and they broke gmail GVoice calls awhile back. But they've now added Google Voice support to Hangouts, which leads me or believe it's going to morph into a Hangouts feature instead of a standalone service.
ralphbarbagallo.com
Where is native VoIP support? That's the feature that would be most appealing, the ability to make and take calls to other 'real' phones from devices with only data access as a native feature.
I know there are other third party apps that can do this like Skype or Line2 and there are apparently back-door ways of doing with GoogleVoice (which according the the Google blog post quoted above aren't supported).
But I always expected this to be a Google Voice feature and it hasn't been.
Say goodbye to Kevin Purdy.
I use google voice a lot.
Every so often it would just not record a call at all. Which meant people left me messages and I had no clue.
I LOVE voicemail transcription. In fact, I wish they'd just get rid of voice mail entirely and make everything text. But at the very least, carriers should offer voice mail to text messaging. It can't cost anything. The computing power is marginal and the text costs are zero.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It is getting hard and harder to deal with Google outside the USA. In the old days you could buy Nexus phone using a VPN and a friend in the US as the shipping address. Now you have to have a USA issued credit card and many times they know you on a VPN. My Google Glass invite will expire in 2 days which pisses me off because is my $1500 not as good anyone else in the USA?
Google Voice is simply another case in point. On May 15th they will block 3rd party apps, effectively disconnected people who uses Google Voice outside the USA. The native Google Voice app demands you verify against the USA phone number, which is fine while you are visiting the USA but once you leave it will stop working when you get a new phone or the app is updated. Groove IP was a great work around and allows you to join those US based work conference calls for free but would cost via Skype. Also handy to contact US based associates that don't have 24/7 VOIP app running and Skype has never work 100% on mobiles.
BTW I would love to hear suggestions for open source VOIP apps that would work as alternative to Skype? I can't say I seen any that can find peers without a commercial service or PSTN behind it.
....they've always been worthless content free clickbait, but it seems like we're seeing them more often lately.
In my experience SMS is broken with Google Voice... no group texts, no attachments, randomly misses texts completely. Highly unreliable.
But I kind of like this about it. Nobody texts me anymore.
Probably not much of a selling point though.
Look up: Obi202. It's a small box that allows you to use Google Voice not just as "call forwarder" but as your primary phone number via VOIP.
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley
I still use Google Voice because it's free (well, I suppose it's not free because they are collecting my data, but I have a feeling the carriers are doing the same anyway). How can you beat that? Sure, I'm only able to use it at home and through WiFi hot spots, so it's only a little bit better than a landline, but I'm not getting gouged by the cell phone companies for a couple of GB a month.
Now someone will respond to this and tell me what great cell phone service they have that's not available in my area and is still garbage for the price ("See? The system works for me. Why isn't it working for you?")
One thing the article nailed:
"MMS messages not only don't come through, there's no notice that someone tried to send something."
Most users don't know the difference between SMS and MMS (and why should they?), so it requires explaining to other people why you only get some texts and not others.
I do like the spam number blocking feature, though, and I'm afraid that once I port it over to a real phone I'll get more telemarketer calls than useful ones.
Ok, so is there some *OTHER* free number you can get and keep forever that will let you forward it to you?
Is there another free *real* phone number you can get and answer on the computer? (SkypeIn is available but that isn't even close to free).
Also, the author is mixing up Google Voice the Service with Google Voice the app. Some of the "problems" depend on the app you use. That's true with "normal" SMS messages too. Not all phones/apps show emoticons - and I've never used MMS in my life. Google voice was originally designed to forward calls, and didn't even do SMS back when it was Grand Central.
Anyway instead of MMS, you can use email if you have a fancy smart phone.
So who cares.
Wait! One dickhead stops using Google Voice and that earns a frontpage article on Slashdot??
SERIOUSLY?!?
Ok, come the fuck on!!!
Can this site make even a minimal effort to not be total shit? For quite a long time, Slashdot was very educational and informative but, over the past few years, it has sunk to near-uselessness. It's only because some people steadfastly refuse to give up despite the fact they are fighting a losing battle that the site isn't entirely crap.
One guy stops using Google Voice and that earns a Slashdot article.
Wow.
I use Google Voice as my salesman number. Anytime a request for info, or quote request, requires giving a verification or call back phone number, I use my Google Voice number. Mine does not combine my numbers. Most helpful for night shift workers.
My Google Voice number does connect ro a free IPKALL number, which connects to a free SIP account. The free SIP account is accessed by a Linlsys PAP2T-AT which gives me a free phone line and number to give out. Call screening features work great. GV allows placing calls on a PC, and ringing your SIP phone so you don't use any airtime. Texting makes the number appear as a cell phone. Keeps you from getting texts all day to your cell. I text salesmen beck at 2AM that send sales pitches.
Most of the time it silently goes to voicemail, unless i'm expecting a verification call. When I expect a call, I turn on the ringer, or login on a laptop if in the field.
Google's handling of Google Voice is getting an enormous amount of bad public relations. Google often makes changes without adequate explanation. See, for example, this information from Google: An update on Google Voice.
Obviously, no one considered the effect on Google's reputation of the fact that Google employee Nikhyl Singhal communicates in an inadequate fashion. For example: "Ward Mundy, Nov 1, 2013: +Nikhyl Singhal Your suggestion that developers have violated Google's terms of service and posed a security risk is disingenuous to put it charitably."
Dear Kevin,
That is pretty cool, I guess. Not that I care what you think.
Signed,
Everyone else
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Google Voice is still great for having a spam-box phone number you can give to places that require a working phone number (car dealers, political organizations, etc.), but you don't really want to hear from. But if that's how it ends up being used, I don't think that's going to convince Google to keep it around. You can tell it's been unloved for some time now... The iPhone app (at least) was updated once all of last year, and the only thing in the update was a warning if you try to txt 911. (So it was probably prompted by a legal issue.)
Maybe now that Google has a mobile phone OS and has to work with all the mobile carriers, there's outside pressure to hold Google Voice back. Well if it goes, so much for my spam-box.
...synomous with being spied upon. Because of their past goodness I would like to defend them, but when even the login to their services defaults to "staying logged in" even though they present that staying logged in could be a security risk makes one question Google's ultimate motives here. One would think that if Google truly valued privacy above all else Google would do what ever it takes to keep their user's secure above all else. I hate to hate on someone who has done me so good in the past, but what Google does in the present is what counts.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
As a backdoor user, here is how to do it. The only cavot is you can not dial out with the desk phone hardware.
Step one. Get a free SIP account. There are several providers, pick one. A SIP account will have an account looking like an email address/ User at provider format.
Step 2. Get a free or paid DID (direct inward dial) phone number. This gives GV a number to forward to. Link it to your SIP account.
Step 3. Get a SIP client, either a softphone for free or a ATA/IP phone. Connect it to your SIP account.
Now you have a number GV can call. This works well for international travel. Take your IP phone with you. Family can call on your local GV number. Google forwards to the local IP Call number to link to a plain SIP VOIP call that you can take worldwide.
Google Voice is a rather tiny product that a relatively small portion of the user base ever uses. Which is good, because they'd almost certainly kill it if it did take off, since it makes pretty much no revenue, and almost certainly loses quite a bit of money per user. (Really, I'm not sure why they keep it going at all... I don't even see a glimmer of a viable business plan here.)
I really doubt anything Google does to Google Voice (including simply pulling the plug) would have an "enormous" amount of bad PR.
In other news, I had hotdogs today. Though I suppose that would be on slashdot too if I had written a fucking dissertation about it. Who gives a fuck if some random jackass stops using one of Google's apps?
Doctor
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Google voice works great for those that hop between prepaid wireless providers. I've switched providers several times in the past few years and didn't have to deal with porting my number around (some mvnos are better than others when it comes to porting)... I just ported my long time cell number to GV and now it doesn't matter what phone number I have on my cell... Everyone can keep calling my "old" number at GV and it rings my cell. And if I lose or break my cell phone I can quickly repoint GV at another number (or not, since I get voice mails and sms's in my email so don't really *have* to answer the phone)
Can we seriously tag articles troll now? If so, beta actually serves a purpose...
The editors can post these lamest of stories and know that it prompt hilarious insightful comments. Most of the articles are not worth reading and the comments are good enough to vet that information, tear the article/pundit to shreds and provide more interesting information links. To me, it looks like the Lucy getting Charlie to attempt punting the US football. Or the diners on TV's Alice who continue to eat at Mels despite the awful food and coffee and owner. Its all about Alice, Vera and "Kiss my grits, Mel!" Flo. At this point, I could say the best thing to do if you really think slashdot is going to crap is not even respond to posts, for as long as you do, slashdot is just as entertaining and informative as it has ever been. It's because of you, I still open slashdot everyday. It's because of you that I post this. I just wanted to thank you all!
I use google voice with my talkatone app on an ipad mini. I pay 20-40 a month depending on how much prepaid data I expect to use. I can use google voice as my number, to text/call/voicemail for an unlimited amount of time. I granted don't use more than 50min of voice a month or more than 20txt a month, but when I do it's nice to not pay extra for something so trivial. I hacked my way onto a senior plan with att last plan I payed for, it still cost about 60 a month with data. barely used a tenth of it's allowance, wasted money!
I first thought this post was about google voice ending... lol, it's awesome! I would hate to see it go like google reader!
Why do I give two shits if this dillhole stops using Google voice? Why is that news?
Hell I love GV, it's a great service and have NEVER once though anything other then "damn I'm gonna have to pay for this someday, it's to damn good to be free..."
I have a huge number of tabs open now of discussions of Google Voice. People with technology backgrounds are saying negative things about Google and Google management.
Sure, most of that will be read only by technologically-oriented people. But a perception of bad management makes it more difficult for Google to hire competent people. (It will always be easy to hire people who are not competent with technology.)
And it's not just this one issue. There are many other issues of Google management receiving the same criticism: People are saying Google is sloppily managed. That is degrading the public perception of Google. Degraded public perception makes ALL management of the company more difficult.
And . . . thank you for saying what I was going to say before I said it.
How'd an insensitive clod such as yourself get a four digit slashdot UID? I can already see you have a very low IQ, but it's the low UID that fascinates me. Did you inherit it? I've heard that idiocy can be congenital.
The latest salvo was when I upgraded my T-Mobile branded phone. It took me nearly an hour of Googling to find the information on Google which told me how to fix what multiple cellular providers have broken, and I can't find any way around the sim lock which prevents Google Wallet from doing tap-to-pay.
In my experience, SMS/voice mail/TTP are broken by cellular providers attempting to keep Google off of their networks (except as a search provider prioritizing their products and services).
Sheesh, Google Voice isn't going anywhere.
And by the way, those of us with jobs will always have more than one number ...
Simply more click-bait brought to you buy the shill that is timothy.
As others have mentioned, there are plenty of reasons to use Google Voice. But even so, if the author only likes the voicemail transcription, why not just use that part? It's fairly straightforward to replace carrier-supplied voicemail with GV, and then you can get all those handy features with your normal number. (it also combines voicemail between your regular and GV numbers, which can be handy)
Holy crap. Fuck you, non-editors.
it is shit now, and this new look is shit,
what a fucking waste of time.
I'm home office. We just moved. I don't have to get a lot of customers to update my contact info, my phone number stays the same.
Sometimes I go into the corporate office. My work number rings my desk phone there too.
My work number rings my home office phone, my corporate office desk phone, and my cell phone. My cell phone is not a great only phone. Since the demise of flip-phones, people tend to have a hard time hearing me on "candybar" style smartphones that do not get long enough to reach both my ear and my voice.
In my case, it's convenient.
I've never used transcripting or anything else. To me, it's only a phone number. I have seen a few voicemail transcripts from GV. Tremendously terrible. Not worth seeing again, so that feature is disabled.
This dipshit deliberately wanted everyone to believe that Google was discontinuing Google Voice, when what he really should have written was "I'm leaving Google Voice because I don't need it."
Asswipe.
I have my old personal Cell attached to google voice now I use my work phone only now, and receive/make calls via Google voice. Bye bye personal cellphone bill.
( and no, I don't make many calls so my employer doesn't care )
death of another usless piece of google cripple work. only works in two places,usa and india. have tried to get it to work in europe,forget it,it never works for more than a few days and you have to have everything else on the phone turned off or try to get along with a device that thinks its in the usa permanently and you need a credit card that google except in usa,basicly none now,far too many problems to make it worth the hassle for a system that does'nt work properly. another google fail,getting bored with google cash grubbers,would be glad to see them gone and jailed in a few years time.
Talkatone, which uses Google Voice for calls, allows me to use my tablet to make voice calls over whatever Internet connection I have available (which is usually wifi either at home or over a 4g hotspot). It's my one real use for Google Voice, but is especially useful, particularly given that while playing Ingress with headphones on, I'm not all that likely to notice my $10 dumbphone ringing in my pocket.
As for why I still have a dumbphone...why the hell would I want all that computing power on a device too small to do anything with without being driven to a fit of rage within seconds?
bad. slashdot.
Google voice is the best to use for all your phone spam.
You can search for a more or less easy to remember number -- like a number that is the similar to your cell phone number (family members and I never had problems to find a number where only the YYY differs in XXX-YYY-ZZZZ).
You can provide it to all the stores that bug you for a number. You can also provide it to your pharmacy or dentist who like to remind you and push you to provide a number. It is sufficient for me to receive the unrequested dentist reminders me by a google voice transcript and not a annoying, ringing phone.
Everyone talks about separate email addresses for spam, but no one talks about different phone numbers... it's time for a change!
My heart skipped when I saw that headline. I have used Google Voice since it came out. I use it as my main number because I can forward it to any number. It comes in very handy because I probably have had about a dozen phones since then and don't have to keep giving out my number. I use it on my resume. My phone is always off (I'm on a minute plan so I use it to make calls for that reason also), but I'm always on email so I am able to see when someone has called. I listen to the messages online. I'd be SOL without it.
And insulate your other numbers from telemarketers and change of service. Filtering and transcription. Awesome.
Google voice remains relevant. I don't even want to bother reading the actual post. As a user from grand central days before google voice was google voice, the service remains just as viable and vital in my day to day life. So much so I don't even want a voice plan with my cell phone but carriers won't capitulate to that request on a cell phone purchase. 1. one number rings my cell, my work desk, gmail browser windows a. any given time, I'm 99.9 % likely to be near one of those. 2. caller filters a. unknown numbers are sent to vmail immediately b. friends get their own vmail greeting c. family always rings d. work gets routed to voice mail when I'm not on call and its not 9-5 during the week. 3. emailed notice of voicemail and texts 4. transcribed voicemail along with mp3 of voicemail 5. jobs and thus work phones come and go, cell phones come and go - the google voice # remains an ever constant 6. normal cell, outside cell reception, no call history of calls while outside reception area, gvoice shows missed calls etc once back in reception area. The only gripe is attachments to txts/sms messages are not sent to the gvoice client on android and no notice that there was an attachment either. 80% of the time the attachment can be found in my email copy of the txt. annoying esp when mass txts about birthday parties are sent and I don't even receive notice it was dropped. Or that google would reply back and say Recipient does not receive sms, please use alternate protocol.
..just because you can, doens't mean you should...
meh - post was originally all nice and formated, but after submit, became a blob 8( oh well, sorry
..just because you can, doens't mean you should...
I know I'll probably be modded Redundant for saying this, but why the fuck did such a misleading headline make it past the (probably sleeping) editors?
...the ability to block calls, for free. Service providers like AT&T and Verizon only offer such abilities as a paid service and limit the number of numbers you can block. Google Voice lets you block as many as you want. The only limitation is it can't uniquely identify people that use caller ID blocking so it is still impossible to block them, and I don't know of any company offering the ability to block calls with bad caller ID info.