Google Voice is truly one of my favorite Google services. From its intimate integration with Sprint, to its smart spam filtering, to its ability to work with third-party apps like GrooVe IP (which enable free WiFi calling on my HTC EVO), it is hands down one of Google’s best offerings. It’s also quite literally unparalleled in the amount of services and functionality it offers for free – it has little or no serious competition.
A couple days ago, Google Voice offered yet another feature that I’ve been dying to see: the ability to screen callers more smartly. In other words, it’s now possible to only screen callers who aren’t in your contact list: you can play a special voicemail greeting just for them, ask them to state their name before being connected, or send unknown callers straight to voicemail without ringing your phone. Previously, this ability was available only through a cumbersome workaround: I had to routinely place all my contacts into a special Google Voice group, and I had to make a point of updating that group whenever I added a new contact. Now, the process is completely automated.
Good job, Google! But there’s a problem: Google Voice has been around for over three years, and even though there have been a few new feature introductions over these years, Google Voice remains largely unchanged. So here’s what I want to see from Google Voice sooner, rather than later:
- Integrated WiFi-calling in every Android handset. This might be accomplished through an update to the Google Talk app, so it will function like Gmail calling already does on the desktop. I understand that carriers might be resistant to this, but Android already offers Internet calling features with VOIP providers that support SIP (on my EVO 3D, I just have to go to Settings > Call > Internet call settings. Additionally, lots of popular apps like Vonage, Skype, or GrooVe IP already offer WiFi calling, and the carriers aren’t blocking those in Google Play. Therefore, I consider the carrier argument moot.
- The ability to send and receive faxes at your Google Voice number. Isn’t this obvious? It could be easily integrated into Gmail and/or Google Drive, so all your faxes will be in one, easily accessible location.
- The ability to send and receive texts from international numbers or SMS short codes. This is one thing that’s stopping Google Voice users from fully embracing the service. Granted, since I’ve integrated my Sprint number into Google Voice, I can at least receive international texts or texts from short codes on the Google Voice web interface. But I can’t reply. Google, if you’re listening, I will pay you for the ability to send international texts from my Google Voice number, as long as your pricing is better than Sprint’s.
- An auto-attendant feature. Wouldn’t it be awesome if your callers could select different options that would ring different phones? This seems like a great idea for small businesses, or for individuals who just want to look more important than they really are.
- The ability to record out-going calls. I know there could be legal issues with this, but it should be easy for Google to determine your location and block this feature if it’s illegal in your state. Plus, in most places, as long as you inform the caller that they are being recorded, it’s perfectly fine. (By the way, this feature would have been great when I was conducting phone interviews for research for my Master’s thesis.)
- The ability to upload MP3 files as your voicemail greeting. I’ve wanted this feature for the past three April Fool’s Days.
- The ability to choose what your callers hear when waiting for you to pick up, or when placed on hold. Personally, I’m not a fan of caller tones, or ring back tones, or whatever you like to call them, but some people are. Also, hold music would be nice for business users.
- The ability to send and receive MMS messages. This is another thing holding some people back from fully embracing the service.
- Integration with more carriers than Sprint. This of course requires cooperation from the carriers, which is sometimes hard to come by. Still, Google has a lot of weight it can throw around, so I think it can make it happen.
So now that I’ve thrown around some suggestions, what would you like to see from Google Voice? Let us know!
I’d like to see a single thread in my inbox for each contact instead of GV starting a new thread each time i message somebody. messaging from the GV site and my phone becomes very convoluted and frustrating when trying to sift through 10 different conversations with the same person. the stock messaging app handles this quite elegantly. Why wouldn’t they set it up this way by default to begin with?
I couldn’t agree more. I would love this feature.
I agree on short codes and single threading for sure, those are my 2 biggest gripes. Otherwise I love sending texts from my pc, and the integration with sprint is great!
As someone who has worked for multiple eFax companies previously, the suggestion that such a feature could A. be easily integrated into Google Voice/Gmail/Google Drive; and B. worth it at all for Google to spend the monumental amount of time it would take to do that, is entirely horrifying.
Harkening back to my experience as a purchasing agent, a support tech, and several other jobs that required far too much time on-hold from people, hold music is the devil.
That is all.
B. be worth it* that is.
My 2 biggest complaints are:
1) no ability to set the number of rings or seconds before going to voicemail.
2) voicemail to text translation is terrible. I can only get a vague idea of what the person may have been saying, as most of the converted text is nonsense.
I’d like to see a client with a way to get to the inbox. I tap on someone’s text, I’m taken to someone else’s. I want to compose a new text from the widget that’s taking up half my screen and there’s no direct way.
It needs a rewrite of some stuff… it’s absurdly clunky.
Echo the desire for MMS support.
Echo the desire for single threading per texter, rather than separate thread by day or whatever GV’s criteria is (never quite figured that out).
Also, support for intelligent splitting of long texts with (x/y) prefix on each segment (such as (1/3), (2/3), (3/3), etc.). And, intelligent splitting (between words, not blindly at 160 characters even if that’s in the middle of a word).
Give me periodic reminders for unread texts (user settable–I’d choose every 5 minutes).
Address outgoing texts to multiple recipients–both a list of individuals that I may want to address on spur of the moment, as well as to groups in my Google Contacts.
Bring me those features and I’d use the GV app on my phone exclusively, rather than Go SMS Pro that I like a lot.
A slightly prettier interface would be nice, such as the (egad, will I actually say it???) iPhone-like bubble threading Go SMS Pro uses. And, I’ve been dying for check boxes on messages in my inbox on my phone so that I can select several messages and mark them as read and archive them in one swell foop, like I can in the Android GMail app.
I’d like to see the text of the voicemail come even close to the real message. Why is the voice recognition so bad on Google Voice? Most of the messages that are transcribed into text are worthless. The only part that works is the telephone number recognition.
Thanks for this article, there is a bunch I would like to see GVoice do.
I think the tops for me are:
Echo on the MMS support.
Echo on the Single Threading of message for contacts (Biggest gripe I have).
Echo on the Address Multiple Recipients or Groups
Also I would like to see:
Option to use other SMS Apps. I kinda do this since I have GVoice integrated with my Sprint. However because its not really supported, I wont for instance get to see my replies if I use the app (Go SMS Pro is my current fav) in my GVoice account. With that said, it would be great if they did an app update and included a lot of the features and functionality that you get with 3rd party SMS apps. It would also be nice to have some widgets that can set you into different modes automatically. For instance I could hit the ‘Driving’ button and it would then play my greeting “I’m currently on the road and cannot answer at this time” or other such modes.
Better integration through-out Google’s other services. I would love to be able integrate it fully into my GMail for instance and be able to have a single in-box for everything. Along those lines it would be REALLY awesome to have the ability (and this is more pie in the sky) to click on a Contact and see ALL of my contact with them (Email, TXT, Voicemails, Calls, heck even Chats).
800 numbers. I would love to use a GVoice for business calls and would pay Google for an 800 number. Right now I have to pay a 3rd party company, have it forward to my GVoice which then has to forward the call as directed by my GVoice settings. Always hate having so many hops in a phone call cause it adds places for it to break.
Better SPAM control. I currently have to keep the SPAM turned off because it keeps sending a lot of my friends TXT and Calls directly to the SPAM box. I haven’t been able to figure out how to add them to an allow list either.
808 Numbers. Here in Hawaii we cannot get a Google Voice 808 number. I’m one of the lucky few that was able to use Sprint in connection with Google Voice to do it. But not sure what will happen if I ever go with a provider other than Sprint (will I lose my GVoice 808 number?).
I know I had more, but that is all I can rattle off for now. I will say that even with these ‘Wants’, Gvoice is still a great service and people that don’t have it or use it are really missing out on some great benefits.
How about GV simply being available in Canada?
I stopped using g voice about 2 months ago. For the 2nd time none of the people that called got the voicemail. Then after resetting it it took about 15 rings for it to work. I love g voice but as a business phone I need a reliable voicemail system. It could be my phone that’s messing up but the phone voicemail works just fine. If I got that to work g voice would be my only voicemail, plus if they allowed me to see the number that was calling me instead of my google number I would use it more often. Hopefully things will be better soon.
Not sure whats up with the other problem, but the one about the seeing which number is calling you is actually a setting. Go to Settings and then Calls, you will see an option for Caller ID (Incoming). Switch that to “Display Caller’s Number” rather than the “Display My Google Voice Number” and you should be all set. (That use to bug me too hehe)