Why is google willfully sabotaging every great product they have all in the name of one terrible one that nobody wants?<p>Up until about 2010 or so, they were absolutely legendary for their skillful execution of ideas - just the right interface, feature-set, and balance. Time and time again, everything they did they knocked out of the park.<p>And then, something changed.<p>Now they are changing what they did right by taking the dumbest moves over and over again - the ones that completely destroys their credibility and alienates their userbase.<p>Is there a single user anywhere who wants this? I really don't get it.<p>If google did a survey:<p>"Are you happy with google voice or would you rather have it in our wacky skype knockoff that you use with our goofy facebook clone?"<p>I'm trying to think of what it would look like if other companies decided to do a similar thing. It would be like if say, General Mills came out with a terrible wretched artificial sweetener and then decide to put it in every product they sell because well, it's their sweetener - of course they should completely dismantle all of their successful lines in the name of their incredibly unsuccessful one. Duh!<p>I really hope that they find the John-Scully's who are internally making all these retarded decisions and stop doing what they say - or else they're well on their way to being a has-been. Yet another great company that somehow put a bunch of ivy-league fortune-500 trainwreck-types in charge and then trusted them until it was too late.<p>In 1999 my friend called Google The next altavista. At this rate, he may be right.
Well, this kind of sucks.<p>I use a Google Voice number that is associated with a Gmail account that I do not use for any other purpose (Hangouts/Talk or otherwise). It doesn't even have a Google+ account associated with it.<p>It's nice to have single number that can ring all my lines.<p>If/when this is killed, what's the alternative?<p>(Article appears to be down/inaccessible for me).
For people like me who follow this space closely, this is not news. And to be fair, the article doesn't really claim it as news.<p>The Google Voice team was rolled into the Hangouts team long ago. The only thing they haven't done is roll the Google Voice app's functionality into the Hangouts app.
The most useful feature of Google Voice to me is the voicemail transcription. It's not perfect, but it's good enough it saves me from having to listen to the voicemail about 90% of the time.<p>There are plenty of other voip/call forwarding services, but are there any that duplicate that functionality?
I assume existing Voice numbers will at least continue working/forwarding? That's my main concern. I have a few different Google Voice numbers I use for different purposes, and my wife actually uses one as her primary number (against my recommendation). I've kind of expected something "bad" to happen to Voice for a while, but as long as the forwarding continues to work this isn't the end of the world for me.
For some reason the site isn't loading for me. If they want to integrate the features of Voice into Hangouts then that's great. The Voice app has been utterly neglected for years.<p>If they want to kill all the Voice features, then I'll be very disappointed.
this move would be a prelude to the cancellation of voice (after it flounders in its new forced home):<p><a href="http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns" rel="nofollow">http://www.gwern.net/Google%20shutdowns</a><p>(note google voice is the highest cancellation risk predicted)
Ugh, I hate that SMS is conflated with Hangouts as it is. It causes notifications for work-related chat to get mixed in with notifications for personal text messages on my phone. Can anyone suggest alternative SMS clients for Android?
While all of this consolidation of their myriad overlapping services and products into a small suite of core services that offer strong featuresets makes sense, I'm constantly astonished how <i>bad</i> they've done at it. Bombarding users with annoying questions about Plus (and the questions are annoying regardless of your opinions on Plus - they never should've even tried to make Plus optional, just enable it but keep it out of the freaking way) and screwing up these transitions... does anybody <i>like</i> any of these new Google apps? And these new apps are increasingly awful or nonexistent outside of Android/Chrome. Can you even send a message through hangouts without installing the browser plug-in? Do they even have a browser-version of Currents?
The issues for a LONG TIME Voice user:<p>1) Voice Mailbox - What Now?<p>2) My mobile phone number IS my Google Voice Number (Sprint)<p>3) Ring at multiple locations (Isn't valuable to me anymore)<p>4) The google.com/voice web page is a lifesaver for searching through my text, and voice mail. (Most Needed Function) <i></i><i></i><i>
They also removed the last bit of Jabber interoperability in the new Google Mail chat/hangouts frontend.<p>I used to be able to talk to my Jabber frieds on both Android and Gmail/Web. They dropped federation on Android with the move to Hangouts, and -- unsurprisingly -- they're now doing the same for Gmail/Web as it's moving to Hangouts.<p>I'm eyeing TextSecure as a replacement IM tool. Sort of hoping the TextSecure desktop app comes around before the Gmail Hangout integration becomes mandatory; but as cool as TextSecure may be from a security perspective, they haven't exactly blown me away with the timeliness of their releases. ;)
As more and more of these get GPlused, the more repuslive they are become. Among all the IM apps out there, I think hangouts sucks the most. More than the fb messenger. 2-3 years back, a lot of people I knew were using gtalk. Infact that was the default IM. We use watsapp now, or fb in case we don't have a number, but not hangouts. This massive transition clearly happened during the gtalk to hangouts change and I don't think I will go back unless the experience becomes better.
Hey All, definitely check out SendHub as a Business Replacement for google voice. It has all of the same features (and plenty GV doesn't). In my opinion SendHub also has better apps and a way better web interface.<p>Also, I'm a Co-Founder here at SendHub. So if you have any questions on getting this to work please drop us a line. (ryan@sendhub.com)
I saw this coming once Hangouts gained SMS compatibility. The nice thing is, I won't have 2 separate apps to view all my messages. I'll be able to make calls and text via Voice(within hangouts) for work, receive normal texts and calls in hangouts, and still be able to chat up with my circles!
This isn't necessarily new news (they spoke of it last year, albeit once), but this is gaining some steam again.<p>I personally, would like to see some integration. But sometimes, Google just tries to G+-ify everything a bit too much. Ex: Latitude and YouYube comments.<p>Hopefully this will just be a nice seamless transition of the GV sms messaging into Hangouts. I could see that as useful.
I just really hate the concept of them somewhat "making" you have a G+ account. Good for a business perspective I guess, but limits consumers. I have no desire to create a G+ account and I'm somewhat annoyed that it seems to be somewhat mandatory for more and more of Google's' Services.
Anyone know of alternatives?<p>I bought a jailbroken iPhone and have been just using a iPad sim card in it for the last little while. This way I pay about $10/month for enough data to get talk / text and the ability to surf the net a lot cheaper!<p>Edit: Or maybe I will still be able to do this once it is integrated with +.
I've been using Voice as my primary number since the GrandCentral days. They better not fuck that up too.<p>Edit: For those who say "it's free don't complain" I reply: "Then Google should bill me. I'll pay."