
Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chrome Extension texting - gregmac
https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/08/02/google-voice-is-killing-sms-voicemail-transcripts-and-texting-from-its-chrome-extension/
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vowelless
I have always been worried about Google Voice completely shutting down. I use
it a lot. Is there an alternative to it? At this point, I am willing to pay a
couple of dollars a month for the service.

Things that I like:

1\. Secondary phone number

2\. SMS to email

3\. Transcripts to email

4\. Relatively cheap international calls

Although they haven't shut down the above four features, I am concerned about
the future of this product.

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kogir
You can pay for it now, and I do:
[https://cloud.google.com/voice/](https://cloud.google.com/voice/)

It's great if you need multiple numbers.

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dhd415
Wow, I didn't know it was available for GSuite! Anyone know if you can migrate
previously-free GV numbers over to it?

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tengbretson
I don't know if this is just me, but I swear in the nearly 10 years I have
used google voice the voicemail transcription has gotten steadily worse. I
remember when I joined I was blown away by how good it was and now I don't
even bother reading them anymore. They're worse than useless.

Or maybe all of my acquaintances have started mumbling more.

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segmondy
Not just you, it was really good 10 years ago, Today, it's pure garbage, I
never depend on it anymore. I listen to the voicemail 100% of the time now. A
part of me thinks it's probably perfect now and they just feed us garbage data
not to freak us out.

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kencausey
I don't use the text transcripts all that much but I haven't noticed any
degradation.

But let's posit that it has degraded. What could have happened? Let's assume
that use of Google Voice has increased (non-obvious) but that Google assigned
resources have not. Perhaps processing power spent on the voice to text
analysis has been reduced? That's my best theory on how a degradation in this
service may have occurred.

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jszymborski
FWIW, I've been using Twilio as a Google Voice replacement. I've yet to create
a web interface, but currently texts to my public number get forwarded to my
real number. I can text my public number with a password and a desired phone
number to forward a text in the opposite direction. Phone calls to my public
number get sent to a voicemail, and transcripts + audio files get texted to
me. If I wish to initiate a call, I text my password and "call <phone number>"
to get a call initiated.

It's been a fun, low-bandwidth interface, and it avoids me using a Google
service.

I'd like to build a web interface, and use 2FA in addition to a password to
access my extra functionality.

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commiebob
Is this something you can setup entirely in the Twilio console or are you
using some custom code to handle it?

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jszymborski
I'm using Twilio Studio atm, which let's you do everything in a drag-n-drop
flowchart in the dashboard.

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benburleson
I am really regretting my decision many years ago to go all-in on GV and make
it my primary phone number.

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dougmwne
Counterpoint: I've been all-in on Google Voice since 2014 and for me it's been
incredible at an incredible price (free). I use it hours per day for business
and personal. Favorite features:

-Seamless international calling and receiving calls while abroad.

-Make/receive calls on multiple devices. I have 2 phones logged in(a flagship and a burner) and use my laptop for most work calls. Press * to transfer yourself from one device to another.

-SMS from my laptop. Love the option to use a real keyboard for longer conversations.

-Voicemail transcripts, which while never perfect, have been good enough to stop actually listening to my voicemails.

-Being able to use VOIP, but also fall back on POTS when I'm having connectivity issues.

-No more carrier tie-in. I usually have an active sim card, but if I have a few days gap here and there it's no big deal, I just use wifi.

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ci5er
Same. For me, from a bit before that - probably about the time of the Grand
Central acquisition.

That said - I have had a couple (depending on how you count, up to 4) pretty
fundamentally dislocating and transformational life, lifestyle, location and
financial dislocations and GV has saved my pathetic life.

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sparrish
I think Google killing off SMS features is a direct results of Verizon adding
an additional $0.0025 fee per SMS, which other carriers are sure to follow.
The costs could quickly add up.

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spankalee
I suspect that it's because the feature was designed before most people had
smartphones and it's easier on everyone to just provide the notifications in
the Voice app.

Especially with the great Android integration (Voice is used for calls from
the system dialer, etc.) getting a transcript text is redundant because you're
getting text via Voice anyway. I bet the transcript texts are just rarely used
anymore.

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u801e
I still use them because it's a lot faster to open and read the message than
it is to call into voice mail, navigate their prompts and actually listen to
the message.

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spankalee
Do you not use the app?

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u801e
My phone isn't supported, so no, I don't use their app.

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president
Google Voice was really useful when it came out but I slowly stopped using it
after most sites/apps started rejecting account sign-ups with Google Voice
phone numbers.

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throwaway123x2
The legacy web interface was so functional! The new interface is actual trash.

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mike503
+1 the new interface is missing a couple key settings and I don’t like it as
much either.

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tracker1
Are these still going to work in Hangouts? That's where I currently use these
features, and the SMS (despite them changing the UI to make it harder) is
still a really big deal for my on the desktop.

