Google Voice

If you think robocalls were nothing more than annoyances, the fact that a Google Voice feature is being killed because of them might change some people's minds. These unsolicited calls that could also be used to phish important personal data has been a scourge of consumers, regulators, and especially carriers for years and efforts to block and penalize them have ramped up in recent months. Unfortunately, Google sees no workaround for one feature and will instead be shutting down Google Voice's voicemail transcript forwarding because of it.

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A Google Voice update released earlier this month appears to have caused certain audio-related features to malfunction. News of the problem has surfaced primarily from the Google Product Forums, where an increasing number of Google Voice users report an inability to use Bluetooth audio headsets and choose which speaker the call audio will be delivered through.

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Google Voice remains a popular service that gets far too little attention. Users have been waiting months for a promised voice-over-IP (VoIP) feature, which entered beta testing around a year ago. Google was quiet on the test during that time, but a recent tweet prompted an update from the company: the new VoIP support is starting to roll out and will be available to everyone soon.

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Google Voice sometimes feels like the forgotten service in Google's portfolio, but a new app update has given the calling service a quick refresh. Launched on iOS with an update this week, the new app won't blow anybody away with its new functionality, but it does make using Google Voice a little easier if it's your primary voice call system.

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Google has released an update for Google Voice, the maker's free voice and texting service, that adds voicemail greeting support on mobile. This is one of the biggest additions since the major update Google released last year, enabling users to easily set up a custom voicemail greeting in the same way they'd create one for their smartphone or home voicemail system.

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Google has no shortage of communication services and apps, each of them overlapping with one another in some way. Some of them haven’t been shown some love, sometimes even for years. Google Voice is perhaps the on that got the shortest end of the stick despite how useful it is. Now, however, Google seems to be preparing what might be the biggest update to the service in a long time. It is putting out a call for beta testers of its Wi-Fi and mobile data calling, a.k.a. VoIP that would, of course, overlap with other Google apps and services that offer the same functionality already.

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Though it's arguably a niche issue, it is frustrating for Google Voice users: an issue that causes texts to be sent using one's regular phone number in certain cases. One of those instances is when using Hangouts as a default SMS app with a Google Voice number as the default SMS number. Many users report that, in this case, sending a text results in Hangouts sending the text with the user's regular phone number instead of Google Voice.

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Google Voice users are complaining about some sort of issue that is preventing them from getting SMS texts. News of the bug first popped up online a couple days ago. Affected users explain that while they can successfully send out text messages using the service, replies sent to them don't appear in the account, effectively ruining the usefulness of the platform for many people.

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All three major entry points for Google Voice have been updated this week, all at once, by Google. "It’s been several years since we’ve made significant updates to the Google Voice apps (and by several, we mean around five ;-)," said Jan Jedrzejowicz, Product Manager for Google Voice. "but today we’re bringing a fresh set of features to Google Voice with updates to our apps on Android, iOS and the web." As such, the Google Voice apps look like they've joined the modern world.

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Google Voice, the company’s seldom mentioned VoIP service, is going to be on the receiving end of some updates soon. News of the updates first arrived via a link some users were seeing when they visited Google Voice. The link and notification encouraged users to click to see the new Google Voice, but the related web page isn’t live at this time. Having accidentally revealed its efforts, Google has since confirmed that yes, it is working on some new updates.

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Your mother has sent you and your sister a photo of their dog, and expects you to reply with a positive note back. But you have an Android device and you're using Google Voice. You get the message, but you don't get the photo. Your mom gets mad that you've not replied. You say it's because she's using iMessage and photos and videos won't be sent to devices unless they also have iMessage. She tells you to get iMessage. You can't get iMessage, you have an Android device. You see where this is going.

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Google's dream MVNO service was proven to be real and the invites have started to trickle to some early testers, or at least for one lucky users in Los Angeles. But perhaps "lucky" is a relative term, as the sign up process for Project Fi reveals some wrinkles that Google's announcement conveniently left out. While the promise of an affordable and fair network service might be drool-worthy for most, for the subset of those who have grown attached to their Google Voice accounts, that dream is quickly turning into a nightmare.

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