Is Google Voice Doomed To Be 2nd-Class Messaging System?

itwbennett writes "There's a lot to like about Google Voice, including 'voicemail transcriptions, the ability to send and receive unlimited text messages by phone or website, and recording incoming calls,' says Voice convert Kevin Purdy. But when it comes to app integration, Voice is falling short — even on Android phones: 'Most apps that do neat things with incoming texts, like read them out loud when you're driving, can't work with Voice. Tasker, a crazy, nerdy automation tool that can do things like turn your volume up when you get a text from your wife, can't work with Voice.... Online services that text you to verify or remind you are about 50/50.' Google employee Nikhyl Singhal wrote in a Google+ post that 'Hangouts is designed to be the future of Google Voice.' But what Voice users like Purdy are looking for is some sort of 'assurance that Google Voice can work just like any other text messaging system.'"

Saves me from having to buy cheap cellphones

[mlts]

For Craigslist and other uses for a disposable number where I don't trust the other party, Google Voice is very handy. Just this use alone makes it worth having.

Doesn't work outside of US

[elh_inny]

Which means it's still very much a niche product.
Once it works in Europe, China and India then we can talk about it having any signficant market share.
Even if every single person in the US switched to Google Voice I think it would still be less users than Skype has already...

Google Voice is amazing

[slaker]

Google Voice does a number of things far better than any other system that more than make up for whatever deficiencies the author believes it might have.

I will preface this by saying that I am a Sprint cellular customer, so Google Voice can be fully integrated into my telephone service.

1. My cell number is integrated in to Google Voice. This means that I can answer calls from anyplace I happen to be logged in to the desktop version of Gmail or have the Google Voice app installed. This means that I do not need to have my phone tied to my actual person 24 hours a day. I can answer a call while I'm reading on a tablet in my bathtub or while my phone is charging in another room.

2. Google Voice transcribes voicemails so that they are delivered as E-mails, so that I don't have to listen to them. This is worth actual money to me. I hate voice mail with a passion.

3. I dislike SMS messages because, again, I don't like having to have my telephone permanently anchored to my body. Google Voice allows me to filter and deliver SMS messages as if they were E-mails and to respond to them as such. SMS messages never hit my phone. I've never opened the SMS app on it. I just respond to e-mails. Again, this is a tremendously valuable service.

If I'm missing something from not having texts delivered to my phone, I don't know and I don't care what that is, because as far as I'm concerned, Google Voice is doing every single thing I want it to already.

Please, not hangout

[Rich0]

Hangout is great, I get it. If they REALLY implemented Voice in Hangout I'd be fine if it were just as simple to utilize.

However, what I don't want is when my Aunt Tilly wants to call me that I say "wait, I don't have a phone number any more - just go to the local library where they have broadband, ask them to install the Google Talk plugin or whatever, and start a hangout with me." Oh, and I'd like it to still ring my home phone, which is just a phone (not a smartphone, not a cell phone - a handset, two pairs of wires, and about $1 in circuitry).

I love Google Voice because it is a bridge that allows me to interface modern technologies like the web/mobile/etc with basic telephony (SMS, PSTN/etc) which are used by everybody who isn't under the age of 25.

Google doesn't want integration

[Dracos]

Google doesn't want seamless integration with existing/external normative systems. Gmail uses a bizarre facsimile of IMAP. Google Talk killed Jabber support a few weeks ago. Voice is not really a phone service, stop thinking of it as one.

Sorry Google, just because you're putting chain link and razor wire around your garden (instead of masonry) doesn't make it any better. Hangouts will be the graveyard for all these services that users don't want bolted together, but are walled off from everything else.

Re:Yes.

[The_Wilschon]

Errr, Betteridge would indicate the answer should be "no.".