Goodbye, Google Voice 166
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.
its only usefulness (Score:1)
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.
Re:its only usefulness (Score:5, Insightful)
I am currently living outside of the U.S.. I still have a Google Voice number, because my permenant address is still in the United States. With Google Voice, we can make calls to people living in the United States still for free. That's a pretty epic usage.
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Not to mention that there are apps like GrooVe IP which allow you to make free VOIP calls via your Google Voice number.
Not for long.
From your own link:
Due to changes in Google Voice, this app will be switching to a different provider to make and receive calls. You can find the most up to date information on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/snrb.... [facebook.com]
Horrible Headline: google voice still around (Score:5, Informative)
Google Voice is not being phased out (yet) by google.
This is just some doosh on itworld ranting about junk on his blog.
Re:Horrible Headline: google voice still around (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, they don't care.
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The point of the headlines is clickbait.
If you want a story accepted, give it a clever clickbait headline.
That is all.
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"Douche." Now, one letter at a time... "d"...."o"....
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the complaint about MMS is legitimate, but it's not a question of google supporting it - AT&T and verizon refuse to send the messages to GV numbers. other than that, GV is awesome ... my cell phone bill is less than $10 per month
i haven't tried the hangouts integration - it's possible that that makes things worse
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and apparently there's nothing more newsworthy coming across the firehose. I suppose we should take this as a sign that many people have stopped contribuitng to /. Perhaps they're over at SoylentNews now.
s/doosh/douch (Score:2)
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Exactly. I read this and was horrified thinking that Google was shutting down Google Voice.
Awhile back, we switched our landline phone number to an extra mobile phone to save money (the $10 extra a month was cheap compared to a wired landline). We had been using Google Voice since the GrandCentral days and decided to port our "home phone" number to it. It cost $40 in one-time fees. ($20 to port the number and another $20 to keep our old Google Voice number.) Now, if someone calls our "home phone", it r
Re: Horrible Headline: google voice still around (Score:3, Insightful)
That's adorable. Back in my day your post would have been modded redundant for being absolutely obvious from reading the summary, and your reply would have been buried by the troll mods it received.
That guy hasn't ruined slashdot as much as kids like you. Although I did enjoy the slight irony of calling someone autistic while displaying poor interpetation of emotion and empathy. Welcome to slashdot.
Re: Horrible Headline: google voice still around (Score:1)
it literally hurts me to read that the autistic are your go to insult
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maybe he has an autistic family member, and to see someone use "autistic" as a pejorative causes him pain. Yes, emotional pain is real pain. Literally.
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I blame the group of scientists who go around declaring successful nerds as "being autistic" and who are taking action to stop the trend by treating every smart child as autistic as the root cause of it becoming a pejorative term.
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As someone who is personally dealing with autism (my son), I can tell you that "being smart" and "being autistic" are completely different things. Yes, one group of people - those with Asperger's Syndrome like my son - can be highly intelligent, but most people with autism have normal intelligence levels. They just don't understand the "social rules" that the rest of the world seems to instinctively know and their senses can be overwhelmed by sights/sounds/smells/etc.
Imagine that you crash landed on an al
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As someone with a son with Autism (High Functioning Autism/Asperger's Syndrome) and someone who is likely autistic himself (though not diagnosed because it just wasn't done when I was a kid), I confess that I am a bit annoyed that the AC would use "autistic" as an insult. Then again, I've also learned over the years that there are just some people whose opinions and actions aren't worth being outraged over. This AC is clearly one of those people.
Re:Horrible Headline: google voice still around (Score:4, Informative)
This headline is so dangerously bad that it makes me want to tag slashdot as a troll.
Seriously, this is so bad lawyers can get involved. Some editor needs to go fix it.
WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Salesman giveaway number (Score:1)
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 pl
New WTF (Score:2)
Save google voice! (Score:2)
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Another chrono-American here who wishes for more general ability to move between the voice and text worlds: Parent was given the impression that GV was being canceled because Google has a history of blipping in and out of experimental technologies too fast.
Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Timothy is dying (Score:3, Funny)
to see the next hollywood blockbuster movie.
See? We can play that game too.
Google Voice still being actively developed (Score:5, Informative)
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... [google.com]
... 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)
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Google Voice is "still" being actively developed? What has Google added to Grand Central at all?
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Still actively developed would be "We've got this 3+ year old thing, it's really popular and maybe the rest of the planet might care if they could use it".
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As a Canadian, I'm often pissed-off by all the services not available in Canada. Maybe Google are not aware there's more than one country in North America.
Well, yeah, it can be pretty common for US companies to overlook Mexico sometimes...
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What has Google added to Grand Central at all?
Not much, but they did add number porting and a pretty nice integration with Sprint Wireless service.
Where is native VoIP support? (Score:3)
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.
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It used to be but was removed.
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I kind of expect Apple to do it in cooperation with the carriers so that devices like iPads and maybe even iPod Touches could use voices. Add the phone app functionality to non-phone devices or enable it in wifi-only scenarios on existing phones.
I'd see it as something carriers could charge some kind of extra fee for as well as call them cell "minutes" no matter how they are used. This allows them to monetize it. Possible opportunity to further monetize it by offering additional phone numbers or other ph
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Apple won't do that - they'd rather you buy an iPhone than use an iPad or iPod to act as a phone. They are in the business of selling hardware, their software and services exist to sell new hardware - not expand the capability of old units.
However, there IS a way to do what you ask - Skype. I use it (along with Google Voice), my Skype number ($5/month) is my main business number. It will ring me at my computer and my cell phone, wherever I am connected to the Internet. For example, I'm in China right no
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As I said in my previous post, if it did exist both Apple and the carrier would tie any such functionality to an iPhone cellphone number.
For Apple, this would guarantee you would have to own an iPhone to get the functionality and prevent you from using an iPad/iPod as a phone without buying an iPhone.
The advantage to Apple would actually be more of an enticement to buy other iDevices since you would gain phone functionality on them you wouldn't get from other vendor products, plus they wouldn't need to offe
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Re:Backdoor details (Score:2, Informative)
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 ac
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Well, you can do this, on a computer at least, using Google talk. You have to use chrome, though, to make it happen, at least on my Mac.
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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..
Gee, that sounds about as helpful to their customers as retiring Google Reader...
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He must be the only developer working on it because google voice has been about exactly the same for what, 5 years? I really liked Google voice, it's amazing for someone who travels internationally and a great way to interact with people using SMS. But it's had these problems for years, and hasn't changed more then slightly in all these years.
I mean, just as an example, when Google came out with IP calling from the web, they added it to gmail and not voice, even though it uses your voice phone number. They
The underlying story? (Score:1)
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.
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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.
Having known somebody employed by them who was frustrated with the changes at the company, I think there is a bit more to it. Some of it is the sort of thing that hit all of these companies - the MBAs took over.
For Tektronix, however, I really wonder if it wasn't the end of the cold war that really caused a shift in technology spending. If you watch any of those 80s videos on SDI (Star Wars) or other big defense contracts you'll always see Tek blue-green in the equipment racks. Their niche was making the
Google often ignores the social effects. (Score:2)
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
"Enormous" effect? (Score:2)
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
Mistake in understanding. They criticize GOOGLE. (Score:2)
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
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I always guessed that the business plan involved recording/transcribing all your calls, for no bad reason whatsoever, nope.
Google Voice Don't Go! (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry about that (Score:3)
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
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Why *do* I need to worry about GV becoming part of Hangouts? I'm looking forward to it.
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I'm with you guys. I lived overseas when I signed up for Grand Central, which became Google Voice, so I could get a US number for my mom to call me on, that I would route to a skype number (it's harder to keep the same skype dial-in number if you're as forgetful as me at keeping a balance on it).
Now I have Google Voice going to an app on an old iPhone with no cell service, and use WiFi for 99% of my calls, occasionally sending the traffic to any number of 'burner' phones if I won't be near WiFi.
The funny t
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There are other companies who provide the same service you are seeking.
Google Voice probably lives... (Score:1)
Stupid Headline. (Score:5, Insightful)
Say goodbye to Kevin Purdy.
I use google voice a lot.
I had to stop using it because it missed calls (Score:2)
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.
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We get that too. However, when I look up the numbers of the missed calls, they are invariably reported as numbers that telemarketers or scammers use. I think that's happening is that Google Voice allows you to mark a number as spam. Someone calls you and tells you that you won a prize and just need to come down and listen to a presentation to get it. You mark it as spam. So do a bunch of other people. Google notices this and does what anti-spam filters do for e-mail: sends the call to the "spam folder
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I mean calls weren't being recognized at all. They weren't in the spam filter or anything. Just not recognized. And the people issuing them weren't on any spam list. My parents for example couldn't call me from their home phone. It would direct to voice mail and then not be recorded.
It didn't do that initially but at some point it started not recognizing some calls from some people and that was just not acceptable.
Very sad about it. Because I really like voice mail transcription. But I can't have calls be l
Google Voice is following the trend of USA only (Score:1)
Google Voice is simply another case in point. On May 15th they will block 3rd party apps, effectively disconnected people who uses
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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?
I wouldn't be surprisedif this largely due to Google trying to avouid litigation in the EU to avoid a conflict with their business model a
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I second that. Initially Skype did not have a telephone bridge, but now you can call worldwide (from and to) for decent prices - even free for freephone numbers. Google Voice on the other hand is getting more and more difficult to use, and the new hangout is another huge step back (trying to find an SMS is quite a challenge). I wish Google would sometimes focus on the customer experience...
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It is getting hard and harder to deal with Google outside the USA.
Don't blame Google. Blame your lame ass government that wants to harass and extort them.
Can we get a ban on IT World stories please.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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There may be hope: http://soylentnews.org/ [soylentnews.org]
I've no idea who's running this site, but an alternative Slashdot sounds intriguing and may go some way to addressing the increasing number of problems plaguing this site.
It definitely has issues. (Score:2)
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.
Re:you definitely have issues. (Score:2)
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 arou
A reason to really like Google Voice (Score:1)
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.
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The Obi202 will stop working in a couple of months when google voice drops XMPP support.
If you currently rely on the Obi202, make other plans.
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Indeed. We have used multiple OBI 110 boxes, connected to different Google Voice numbers, and it works like a charm for landlines. Free landlines. As many as you need. For free calling, with a regular telephone.
I'm sorry, but anybody who knocks a service that allows you to deploy free regular telephones (after the cost of OBI 110, $47 on Amazon) to anyone with an Internet connection isn't seeing the forest through the trees. Not everybody has or needs a mobile phone. (And especially the cheap phones many pe
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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.
Yup, and they advertise that it won't work after May 15th with Google Voice. Apparently Google will be taking steps to block 3rd-party VOIP integration on that date. I'm not quite sure how they'll manage to stop it entirely though, unless they eliminate Hangout support as well.
Re:A reason to really like Google Voice (Score:4, Informative)
The Obihai boxes (I have one which I use for Google Voice) use XMPP for Google Voice.
Google is killing XMPP support and the Obi boxes will no longer directly support Google Voice at that point.
Fortunately, the Obi boxes also do standard SIP. You can get a SIP account from a VOIP provider and a DID. Point your Google Voice number at the DID and you'll get incoming calls.
For outgoing calls, most decent VOIP providers will allow you to set your outgoing caller ID after verifying that the number is valid.
It's not free, but it works and it's relatively inexpensive.
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You can get a SIP account from a VOIP provider and a DID. Point your Google Voice number at the DID and you'll get incoming calls.
IF you are in the USA.
Actually, as long as you get a DID in the USA you can get them anywhere. Google has no way to know where that forwards to.
But it is quite silly to have Google call out to the PSTN, only to route it back into a VOIP call. If they just let you register a SIP address with them they could bypass the phone network entirely. I believe this is mostly done for regulatory reasons - they can avoid collecting various government fees because they argue that their customers already pay them on the lines they forward
Free (Score:1)
Now someone will respond to this and tell me what great cell phone service they have that's not available in my are
Silent MMS dropping is a deal breaker (Score:2)
"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.
Re:Silent MMS dropping is a deal breaker (Score:5, Insightful)
MMS texts (and images) come through but only if sent from a Sprint phone. I was rather surprised one day when I received one - I assumed google finally added support for mms. It wasn't until after a lot of trial and error and sleuthing that I figured out it was only if the mms was from a sprint phone.
The article is correct - google voice should be alerting someone (sender or receiver) the message wasn't delivered, but my hunch is that Sprint is providing the connectivity for Google Voice and they just throw away 3rd party MMS messages as part of the contract in order to keep bandwidth down.
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i agree - silently dropping MMS is a killer
afaict, AT&T and verizon refuse to send the data to google so there's nothing technical that google can do, ie this has nothing to do with google being stingy and everything to do with AT&T and verizon being a virtual duopoly and using their market position to exclude competitors
here's an article [usatoday.com] talking about it. and from the google engineer's google+ page (emphasis mine) ...
T-Mobile has allowed MMS messages from their users to be sent to Google Voice users.
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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.
They do in my experience. And I've yet to come across somebody that's ever used MMS. I know I haven't.
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I know this. This does not invalidate my former statement.
Uhm... (Score:1)
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
Wait!... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
kevin (Score:5, Insightful)
That is pretty cool, I guess. Not that I care what you think.
Signed,
Everyone else
Spam box (Score:1)
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 prob
Random guy stops using popular service (Score:5, Funny)
prepaid wireless (Score:2)
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 n
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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
How do you deal with your outgoing calls coming from a strange number instead of from your Google Voice number?
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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
How do you deal with your outgoing calls coming from a strange number instead of from your Google Voice number?
I don't make many outbound calls, but if it were a problem, I'd just route them all through Google Voice.
Yellow journalism ... (Score:2)
Sheesh, Google Voice isn't going anywhere.
And by the way, those of us with jobs will always have more than one number ...
id 39371 signing off (Score:3)
Holy crap. Fuck you, non-editors.
On number to rule them all (Score:2)
And insulate your other numbers from telemarketers and change of service. Filtering and transcription. Awesome.
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Those are for when you are driving and it is so much easier to just leave a VM. Also, when the background noise in the car makes a dictated e-mail look like it written by a drunk, illiterate wombat.
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You mean there are *non* drunk / illiterate wombats?
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It's also great if you have a mother-in-law on the other side of the world. The cost per-minute for calls from phone to phone (she just cannot seem to figure out Skype) is as good as any provider.
My wife talks for an hour and it's just a few cents. Or at least that's how it seems. Plus, we can do all kinds of other tricks with voice to text and other things.
I was about to get really pissed if this story was about Google pulling the Voice service.
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Free and low cost phone numbers are available from multiple sources. This is not a unique property of google voice.