With its hit or miss dependability, Google Voice’s transcription feature for voicemail can manage to make an important message read like the ramblings of a friend drunk dialing you from happy hour. Aware of this, Google is launching a new initiative to improve its service, but the search giant needs your help. Now when you log into Google Voice via the web, you’ll be asked if you wish to anonymously share your voicemail messages to help make transcription better.
We’ve heard that Google Voice is operating on borrowed time, but it looks like the search giant hasn’t completely cut off support for its ailing telecommunications app. Today, the company pushed out an update for Google Voice that doesn’t appear to bring much to the table, except for one noticeable difference.
We’ve heard that Google Voice is getting dragged to the trash can and most of its functionality will be incorporated into the G+ Hangouts apps on both Android and iOS. This has already happened to an extent with the ability to phone friends on Hangouts, but we’re hearing the full shuttering and depreciation of the app is the next step.
What’s interesting here is that VoIP-to-phones is expected to be integrated into the Hangouts iOS and Android apps so that, just like with the Web version, you could be able to actually make (and receive) VoIP calls directly from your Google phone number. Whether the carriers and Apple are okay with this isn’t certain, and the thought is that it could be enabled by carrier like Apple’s FaceTime (or could be scrapped altogether) depending on the global market and the carrier. Expand Expanding Close
The Google Voice app for iPhone and iPad got a significant update to version 1.3 today. The update introduces Google Voice integration that allows incoming calls to your Google Voice number and outgoing calls to U.S. and Canadian numbers. Also inlcuding in the new version is the ability to see which friends are currently online, support for animated GIFs, and a fix to keep the app from stopping your music when a message comes in. The update is available for free to all users on the iOS App Store now. Expand Expanding Close
When Google rolled out its new unified Hangouts messaging service, some users were disappointed that the new experience within Gmail removed the ability to place free calls within the US and Canada. Google previously confirmed that the feature would be returning and today it announced on its Gmail blog that it is rolling out the free calling feature to Gmail Hangouts and also adding some new features.
In addition to improvements to desktop calling, such as the ability to “add multiple phone numbers and video participants to the same call” and play sound effects, it is also making calls to the US and Canada free from any country with access to Hangouts. Expand Expanding Close
Some of you might have noticed that updating to Google’s new unified Hangouts chat service in Gmail meant giving up the Google Voice calling capabilities that were previously available to users in the US and Canada. We suspected Google had plans to bring the feature back and users currently have the option of reverting back to the old Gmail chat in order to access the feature. Now Google has responded to concerns by promising that “Hangouts is designed to be the future of Google Voice, and making/receiving phone calls” will return in a future update.
We have been seeing more leaks surrounding Google’s much rumored unified chat service that most are calling “Babel”. On Monday we got a look at some pretty legit looking screenshots of Babel inside of Gmail that apparently came straight from a Google engineer testing the service, and today we get even more details about Babel.
A new report from Droid-life claims to have additional details about the service including a feature list from sources close to the project.
Google Babel as a product is a collaboration of work by the Google+, Android, Chrome and Apps teams. Through their combined efforts, as was previously reported by us, we’ll see this unified service launch in Gmail and as Android, iOS, and Chrome apps. What’s particularly interesting, is that Google is talking about the iOS app as being the first time they have built a “first class iOS experience” when it comes to a messaging service.
On top of a “first class iOS experience,” the report also says that Google Voice will eventually be integrated alongside Talk, Hangouts, and Messenger, but not initially at launch. Other features apparently coming to the yet to launch service include: notification syncing across devices, an updated messaging UI, group conversations, 800+ emoji, and some other expected features. Head below for the full list:
Brand new UI. We’ve designed a new UI that’s applied across all clients and promotes conversations.
Stay in sync. With just one conversation list and experience across mobile and desktop, everything is always in sync. Install the Chrome app, the Android app, and iOS app.
Desktop app. Stop laying whack a mole across blinking browser tabs. With the new Chrome app your conversations continue outside of the browser.
Keep a group conversation going to coordinate with your team, and start a Hangout with a single tap whenever you need to talk face-to-face.
Be notified…just once. Get notifications on your two phones, tablet, laptop, and desktop. Open it on one and watch the others disappear. If you’re actively using your computer or phone we’ll even intelligently notify you on just one of those endpoints. Magic!
Message more than just text. Add a photo to the conversation and/or send some of the 800+ emoji to your coworkers. Kittens and poop are particularly helpful in explaining complex issues.
Get nostalgic. Scroll back in time and relive any (on-the-record) conversation, on any device.
More ways to talk. For the first time we are building a first class iOS experience. Try out our very early preview on your iPhone or iPod Touch.
As it did around the holiday season last year, Google is once again extending its free calling service for United States and Canadian Gmail users for another year. Google announced on the official Gmail blog today that Gmail users will continue to be able to place free domestic calls in the U.S. and Canada through 2013.
Many of you call phones from Gmail to easily connect with friends and family. If you’re in the US and Canada, you’ll continue to be able to make free domestic calls through 2013. Plus, in most countries, you can still call the rest of the world from Gmail at insanely low rates.
Regarding the Google-Dish tie up that was reported last night, we just got word that this is really happening. While the details haven’t been finalized, Google is already deep into development on plans to roll out the service and have it live by mid-late 2013.
Google is launching its Glass head gear next year and would benefit from total control of the network. Without full control, Google is seeing its Voice and Wallet services being blocked by carriers, specifically AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.
Dish has previously said on numerous occasions that it would like to build a wireless network with the wireless spectrum it has acquired since 2008, but the company wants a partner to help fulfill this endeavor. As the Wall Street Journal noted in its report from yesterday, Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen said potential partners include companies that would like to be in the industry and currently don’t have a wireless sector.
Google released an update for the “Google Voice” Android app today that allows Android 4.0 visual voicemail integration.
Software Engineer Yong-Hoon Choi explained on the official Google Voice blog that the app supported visual voicemail since 2009, but jumping between the call log and Google Voice app proved cumbersome.
Google announced today that it is adding Google+ Circles to Google Voice.
Software Engineer Tom Ford took to the official Google Voice blog to tell users how Circles give callers more control with organizing and managing in Google Voice:
Circles give you more control over how you manage your callers; for example, calls from your “Creepers” circle can be sent straight to Voicemail, only your “College Buddies” circle will hear you rap your voicemail greeting, or you can set your “Family” circle to only ring your mobile phone.
As Ford mentioned, go to the Groups & Circles tab in Google Voice settings to customize Circles.
Google celebrated its 1oth anniversary in Canada by doubling its staff and indicating hopes to have an even larger presence in 2012.
The company currently has 300 employees in four Canadian offices, in Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, and Montreal. Google’s global headcount was listed at 32, 353 in the third quarter of 2011.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine first moved north in 2001, and Head of Mobile Advertising Eric Morris was one of the first Google Canada employees to start work for the North American sect.
“Canada is one of the fastest growing markets for Google and it’s one of our big bets corporately,” said Morris. “It’s a market that Google is very committed to and investing in heavily in terms of resources and growing very, very quickly.”
In 2002, according to Morris, Google projected that 70 percent of Canada’s population would be online by 2017. Canada reached 79 percent in 2010.
“In 2010, 93 percent of households with three or more people, as well as those with at least one member under the age of 18, had home Internet access,” reported a recent Canadian Internet Use Survey. “By contrast, 58 percent of one-person households had home Internet access.”
Google has updated Google Voice for Android to version 0.4.2 — a small update — but the app now features group texting, offline voicemail, and improved text message notifications.
Offline voicemail is definitely the big feature here, letting users listen to voicemail in spotty coverage areas. Now if there could be some improvements to the iOS app and MMS available on all carriers. Download it now!
What’s in this version:
Prefetch voicemails so they can be listened to even when there is no data coverage
Allow sending text messages to multiple recipients
According to a tweet by the official Google Voice Twitter account, Google has pulled the Voice for iOS app from the iTunes App Store. Google decided to pull the app due to its crashing on startup, which was introduced with iOS 5 (Couldn’t sort it out in 3 months of iOS5Beta?). Google says hang tight for the time being, because they’ll be updating/rereleasing the app again. Tweet:
Removed the iPhone app from the App store. We’ll have a new version for you ASAP with a fix for the sign in bug.
As of today, Google Voice has been added to Google Takeout, a service which allows you to quickly export data from specific Google applications. You can now export voice communications (transcripts too) with voicemail and greetings as mp3s, phone numbers as a vcard, and text messages as html.
The service lets you create a quick full archive of all your data, or select just Voice or another service. You can check out Google Takeout now, which also allows you to download data from other applications including your contacts, stream and circles from Google+, Picasa Web Albums, and your Google Profile info. Expand Expanding Close
Google has released an update to their calling feature inside of Gmail, allowing users to make multiple calls. If you’re on a call and make another call, the current call will be put on hold and you can switch between the calls with the resume button. Even better, when getting an incoming call while on another you can put the current call on hold.
This new feature works on voice, video, and phone calls. If a call is placed to a physical phone number there can only be two calls at once. How long until you can conference calls and do everything else a phone can do? Bye bye telephone!
Wouldn’t it be great if you could report those pesky phone calls from marketeers as spam with a single click, just like you in Gmail? If you’re a Google Voice user, now you can because the search monster this morning flipped the switch on the new global spam filtering machine that sucks out unwanted calls before they hit your phone.
And if some go through, the new Report Spam button in the Google Voice interface is all you need to stop the pesky callers who wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer from wasting your time. You can also fine-tune the system by automatically redirecting calls, texts and voicemails from any of the numbers in Google’s database directly into their spam folders. To turn on spam filtering, tick the Global SPAM filtering box on the Calls tab of Google Voice settings.
