After introducing the feature last February, Google Voice for Android and iOS have removed Smart Reply suggestions that appeared at the bottom of messages.
This straightforward feature looked at the last received message and suggested up to three contextual replies. These pills would appear above the “Type a message” field with the Smart Reply immediately sending on tap.
Release notes for Google Voice on the Play Store and App Store confirm the removal: “Smart reply is no longer supported.” There’s no other explanation, and this appears to be a server-side change, as I no longer see Smart Replies before (version 2022.12.26) the latest Google Voice update (2023.01.09).
You still get Smart Reply suggestions as part of notifications, but that’s an Android capability. It’s possible that Google sees them as a system-level feature rather than something to be implemented on an app-by-app basis. Smart Replies remain available in Google Messages, Gmail, and even Google Docs comments.
It’s a curious removal and could be due to Google seeing Voice as an enterprise calling service first that’s geared towards businesses and retail/stores. Texting might not be a priority as seen with the continued lack of RCS support.
More on Google Voice:
- Google Voice call screen getting ‘Suspected spam caller’ warning
- Twitter no longer supports Google Voice numbers for 2FA
- Google Voice now automatically switches between Wi-Fi and cellular
- Google Messages rolls out group chat end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in beta
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