Is Google Voice still useful?
It took nearly a decade but standard phone apps have caught up
Recently I wrote about how Apple is adding a feature called “live voicemail” to the upcoming version of iOS.
And this got me thinking. Haven’t I been able to do this on my Android phone for a long time?
We’ve had the debate between iPhones and Android phones for a long, long time. I’m not really looking to rehash that argument today. But for what it’s worth, I think that iOS and Android are more similar today than they have ever been. There were times when I thought Android offered far more features. And there were other times when I thought that iOS was far more polished and easy to use than Android.
These days I’d compare them to two really amazing ice cream shops making their best version of the same ice cream. Neither one is really better. They’re both delicious. Maybe they taste ever so slightly different but the preference is really in the eye (or mouth in this terrible analogy) of the beholder.
What is Google Voice?
Glad we got that out of the way. But the reason I bring this up is because I’ve long been a user of Google Voice. And it’s gotten blurry to me where Google Voice ends and the standard Android phone experience begins.
Let’s take a step back. What exactly is Google Voice? It is a stand-alone app and desktop experience that allows people to create virtual phone numbers. Some people have done this in order to easily create a new business line without having to deal with a landline or mobile company. Other people, like me, decided that they just enjoyed the amazing features that were provided by Google Voice back in the day.
The year was 2009 and Google launched Voice a few years after acquiring a company called GrandCentral. GrandCentral offered a niche service that promised to be one phone number for all of the many distinct areas of your life. It mostly allowed for easy call forwarding and the creation of multiple virtual lines that could all ring the same physical phone. Why would Google want a company like this? It’s sometimes hard to say why Google acquires companies or shuts down services. But my guess is that they knew that nifty voice calling features would come in handy if they were building a mobile operating system to compete with Apple (and at the time Blackberry and Microsoft, it’s ok you can giggle at that).
And let’s be clear, these features were indeed nifty! TechCrunch had a glowing review of the service when it first launched, and I was enamored as well. I had been loving my Motorola Droid phone and was becoming a self-described Android nerd. I had also been living in San Francisco for a few years but still felt self-conscious of my mobile number with a New York area code. I needed a new San Francisco phone number and Google Voice was the easiest way to do it!
I remember signing up and playing around with it but wasn’t sure how I was going to really use it. There were some pretty big shortcomings in the early years. Sure, you could send text messages from your computer rather than your phone (this was a big deal and before iMessage or anything else allowed this) but good luck sending photos or videos. I found myself splitting my time between my standard mobile number and my Google Voice number. It was often confusing for friends and became confusing for me too.
Then I finally made the leap and decided that Google Voice was useful enough that I was going to make it my primary number. It became the number that I’d give out to new contacts and I told old contacts that I was updating. It wasn’t without its hiccups but it did give me plenty of cool features that non-Voice users were envious of.
What made it so useful?
Here’s a fun example. Google Voice lets you setup unique voicemail messages for any incoming number. So when your Mom calls, your voicemail will say “Hey Mom!….” You basically can record anything you’d like to give specific greetings for each of your friends. It may have taken a little up front work, but friends were baffled and entertained and it made for such a better voicemail experience.
Here’s another way that Google Voice made my life easier. I was able to set up a call forwarding action for the doorbell to my apartment building. Whenever anyone rang the bell it would forward the call to my Google Voice number no matter where I was. I could remotely let in delivery drivers from anywhere in the world (whether that’s always safe is another question). Without this Google Voice setup, I would only have been able to let people into the building from a landline phone in the apartment that was directly wired to the gate. This was extremely convenient!
I think you get the idea. There were a whole host of fun little things that you could do with Google Voice that you couldn’t do with an ordinary mobile number. And these were things that you couldn’t do on iPhones or even on a standard Android experience. But the Google Voice app only really worked on Android phones, so by the law of syllogism I think that made Android phones better at the time!
Conclusion
But like many amazing Google products, Voice stopped getting regular updates or new features. It surprisingly still continues to work and I haven’t changed many of my settings since I first set things up nearly fifteen years ago. The standard Android phone dialer and messaging app have been much improved since then. Yes, I know that Android phones still show up as green bubbles when messaging with iPhone users but that’s not a discussion for today. But many would argue that you’d have a better experience with the standard setup than you would with Google Voice these days.
It leaves me in a predicament. Since I’ve adopted my Google Voice number as my standard number, I wouldn’t want to give it up. I could pretty easily just convert the number to a regular mobile phone carrier number if I had to. That may be the best option in the coming years if there is no other benefit to maintaining a virtual number. And there are still the random automated texts from some companies that don’t work with a virtual number (although this number has gotten progressively smaller over the years). For the most part, it’s been a smooth experience but I no longer feel like it’s an improved experience over the status quo.
Is Google Voice still useful at all in 2023? Is anyone else out there still using it for anything?
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
Hey! Could you use some help establishing healthy habits? Do you have a big project or new business that you want to get off the ground but could use some advice? Maybe you could benefit from hiring me as your coach. If you’re interested, read more about my coaching services here, or go ahead and book some time on my calendar to discuss further.
Iterate is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you should let me know that this writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless I enable payments at some point in the future. Think of it like an IOU in a tip jar.