8 ms·

Google Voice is killing SMS voicemail transcripts and Chrome Extension texting

93 points by gregmac 7y ago

sparrish 7y ago
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.
- mlevental 7y ago
  huh? where is this news? texts have been free for like ~15 years (where as they used to be pay per text)
  - mjcl 7y ago
    The fee is being added on the wholesale/commercial side (bulk senders), not the consumer side. See https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008372654-Commercial-Long-Code-SMS-Product-and-Fee-Structure-Changes-on-Verizon https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008372654-Co... or you can google "Verizon $0.0025" to find announcements from several other service providers.
- spankalee 7y ago
  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.
  - u801e 7y ago
    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.
    - spankalee 7y ago
      Do you not use the app?
      - u801e 7y ago
        My phone isn't supported, so no, I don't use their app.
  - qes 7y ago
    Oh is that what they're removing - the duplicates of Voice texts that come through my normal carrier? Wonderful. Those are so pointless. I was just ranting about the dialer UI they added to the web UI, but after a few days they updated it so that it auto-hide if your viewport is narrow enough.
- checktheorder 7y ago
  I certainly hope those bulk commercial SMS fees add up. SMS spam is bad enough as it is.
- dougmwne 7y ago
  I doubt it. I think it is a result of moving away from hangouts and to the new voip backend. Likely just cleaning house on some features that were rarely used. The voicemail transcripts are still forwarded to email and available in the app and web interface. SMS isn't changing otherwise.
jszymborski 7y ago
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.
- rsync 7y ago
  "FWIW, I've been using Twilio as a Google Voice replacement. " I did the same thing about 1.5 years ago. Haven't looked back. I do almost all of my texting to friends and family from the UNIX command line using the 'sms' script I wrote. I can text from my phone number even if I don't have my phone. Even if it's off. Please, please join me in pressuring twilio to add a 'email' verb to twiml ... there are so many simple use-cases that would be so trivial and easy if you could just call 'email' from inside a twiml bin.
- vowelless 7y ago
  What are your approx. monthly costs? Is it possible to port the GV phone number to Twilio?
  - jszymborski 7y ago
    Twilio supports porting, but I don't know if GV numbers are special. My monthly costs range between $1 to $5, but that's because (1) I very rarely call people, and (2) I transition quickly to email/Wire or some other messaging app if I want continued communication.
- gregsadetsky 7y ago
  Same. I transferred a few of the phone numbers I "collected" while traveling to Twilio, and have them all forward calls & SMS to my current "real" number. I'd love to have a mobile app such as Burner's [0] to do messaging and outbound calls. Right now, when I do outbound SMS or calls, my real/current number appears, which adds a bit to the confusion on the other side. To make international calls, I use the mobile Google Hangouts app. Burner is great, albeit more expensive than "raw" Twilio, of course. An official Twilio consumer app would be fantastic (but they're probably not interested to support this..?), otherwise an app that I can authorize to manage by Twilio account via OAuth would be great as well... [0] https://www.burnerapp.com/ https://www.burnerapp.com/
vowelless 7y ago
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.
- paulkon 7y ago
  https://www.bandwidth.com/ https://www.bandwidth.com/ Google voice, Skype, Zoom and others use their network.
  - 7h3kk1d 7y ago
    Do they have consumer app versions?
  - rsync 7y ago
    I'm curious - if I get a number from bandwidth, is it an actual mobile number that can receive SMS from shortcodes ? That is one downside of twilio - they cannot provide a true mobile number and so therefore you cannot get 2FA and other texts that come from shortcode numbers ...
    - notyourday 7y ago
      Nope. Tried it. It failed SMS verification.
- stevenicr 7y ago
  I have been using grooveip ( https://snrblabs.com/Grooveip/FAQ https://snrblabs.com/Grooveip/FAQ ) for 2 out of 4 of those things and been mostly happy with it. I have not been using all the functions that snrb makes available. Just peeked at the commercial api thing and such. Think I had an android app at one time that would auto forward sms to email, but that's been a while / a few phones ago.
- 7y ago
tengbretson 7y ago
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.
- segmondy 7y ago
  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.
  - kencausey 7y ago
    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.
  - dajohnson89 7y ago
    the Google search has gotten terrible lately
- YourMatt 7y ago
  I've been using it for 10 years as well. I haven't noticed it getting better or worse during this span. It's never been perfect, but it's always been good enough.
- ebg13 7y ago
  The Android swipe-style typing accuracy has also gone steadily down over time to the point where it regularly chooses letter combinations that aren't real words. I suspect that it's because they allow their training corpuses to be polluted by trash from random users because it's "smarter that way".
benburleson 7y ago
I am really regretting my decision many years ago to go all-in on GV and make it my primary phone number.
- kogir 7y ago
  Why? The number is portable if you wish to take it elsewhere. https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1065667?hl=en https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1065667?hl=en
- dougmwne 7y ago
  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.
  - ci5er 7y ago
    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.
throwaway123x2 7y ago
The legacy web interface was so functional! The new interface is actual trash.
- mike503 7y ago
  +1 the new interface is missing a couple key settings and I don’t like it as much either.
president 7y ago
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.
tracker1 7y ago
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.

93 points by gregmac 7y ago

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.

mlevental 7y ago
huh? where is this news? texts have been free for like ~15 years (where as they used to be pay per text)
- mjcl 7y ago
  The fee is being added on the wholesale/commercial side (bulk senders), not the consumer side. See https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008372654-Commercial-Long-Code-SMS-Product-and-Fee-Structure-Changes-on-Verizon https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360008372654-Co... or you can google "Verizon $0.0025" to find announcements from several other service providers.
spankalee 7y ago
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.
- u801e 7y ago
  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.
  - spankalee 7y ago
    Do you not use the app?
    - u801e 7y ago
      My phone isn't supported, so no, I don't use their app.
- qes 7y ago
  Oh is that what they're removing - the duplicates of Voice texts that come through my normal carrier? Wonderful. Those are so pointless. I was just ranting about the dialer UI they added to the web UI, but after a few days they updated it so that it auto-hide if your viewport is narrow enough.
checktheorder 7y ago
I certainly hope those bulk commercial SMS fees add up. SMS spam is bad enough as it is.
dougmwne 7y ago
I doubt it. I think it is a result of moving away from hangouts and to the new voip backend. Likely just cleaning house on some features that were rarely used. The voicemail transcripts are still forwarded to email and available in the app and web interface. SMS isn't changing otherwise.

jszymborski 7y ago

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.

rsync 7y ago
"FWIW, I've been using Twilio as a Google Voice replacement. " I did the same thing about 1.5 years ago. Haven't looked back. I do almost all of my texting to friends and family from the UNIX command line using the 'sms' script I wrote. I can text from my phone number even if I don't have my phone. Even if it's off. Please, please join me in pressuring twilio to add a 'email' verb to twiml ... there are so many simple use-cases that would be so trivial and easy if you could just call 'email' from inside a twiml bin.
vowelless 7y ago
What are your approx. monthly costs? Is it possible to port the GV phone number to Twilio?
- jszymborski 7y ago
  Twilio supports porting, but I don't know if GV numbers are special. My monthly costs range between $1 to $5, but that's because (1) I very rarely call people, and (2) I transition quickly to email/Wire or some other messaging app if I want continued communication.
gregsadetsky 7y ago
Same. I transferred a few of the phone numbers I "collected" while traveling to Twilio, and have them all forward calls & SMS to my current "real" number. I'd love to have a mobile app such as Burner's [0] to do messaging and outbound calls. Right now, when I do outbound SMS or calls, my real/current number appears, which adds a bit to the confusion on the other side. To make international calls, I use the mobile Google Hangouts app. Burner is great, albeit more expensive than "raw" Twilio, of course. An official Twilio consumer app would be fantastic (but they're probably not interested to support this..?), otherwise an app that I can authorize to manage by Twilio account via OAuth would be great as well... [0] https://www.burnerapp.com/ https://www.burnerapp.com/

vowelless 7y ago

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.

paulkon 7y ago
https://www.bandwidth.com/ https://www.bandwidth.com/ Google voice, Skype, Zoom and others use their network.
- 7h3kk1d 7y ago
  Do they have consumer app versions?
- rsync 7y ago
  I'm curious - if I get a number from bandwidth, is it an actual mobile number that can receive SMS from shortcodes ? That is one downside of twilio - they cannot provide a true mobile number and so therefore you cannot get 2FA and other texts that come from shortcode numbers ...
  - notyourday 7y ago
    Nope. Tried it. It failed SMS verification.
stevenicr 7y ago
I have been using grooveip ( https://snrblabs.com/Grooveip/FAQ https://snrblabs.com/Grooveip/FAQ ) for 2 out of 4 of those things and been mostly happy with it. I have not been using all the functions that snrb makes available. Just peeked at the commercial api thing and such. Think I had an android app at one time that would auto forward sms to email, but that's been a while / a few phones ago.
7y ago

tengbretson 7y ago

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.

segmondy 7y ago
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.
- kencausey 7y ago
  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.
- dajohnson89 7y ago
  the Google search has gotten terrible lately
YourMatt 7y ago
I've been using it for 10 years as well. I haven't noticed it getting better or worse during this span. It's never been perfect, but it's always been good enough.
ebg13 7y ago
The Android swipe-style typing accuracy has also gone steadily down over time to the point where it regularly chooses letter combinations that aren't real words. I suspect that it's because they allow their training corpuses to be polluted by trash from random users because it's "smarter that way".

benburleson 7y ago

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

kogir 7y ago
Why? The number is portable if you wish to take it elsewhere. https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1065667?hl=en https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1065667?hl=en
dougmwne 7y ago
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.
- ci5er 7y ago
  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.

throwaway123x2 7y ago

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

mike503 7y ago
+1 the new interface is missing a couple key settings and I don’t like it as much either.

president 7y ago

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.

tracker1 7y ago

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.