With only two days left in 2024, I would like to point out that Google Voice was not updated with any consumer-facing features this year.
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For the first part of its life, Google Voice was a consumer product with a very Google-y mission statement:
When we first introduced Google Voice our goal was to create “one number for life”—a phone number that’s tied to you, rather than a single device or a location. Since then, millions of people have signed up to use Google Voice to call, text and get voicemail on all their devices.
It was still for personal usage when the 2017 relaunch — the first update in five years — happened. Following that revamp (which brought Material Design), Google Voice saw a steady rate of new features, as well as the wind down of Hangouts.
In 2018, an enterprise (G Suite) version of Google Voice launched, with all users benefiting from a redesigned app. In 2019, we notably got VoIP calling and the Google Material Theme, as well as international expansion just for business usage. A dark theme arrived in 2020, with development still happening over the course of 2021 and 2022. The sole highlight of 2023 was a long overdue Material You redesign, while Google introduced spam warnings for text messages later that year. That has the honor of being the last consumer Google Voice feature introduced in the past 15 months. In 2024, the only Google Voice feature introduced was an enterprise Salesforce integration.
Google Voice today is primarily a business application. Specifically, it is an add-on to Google Workspace: “An affordable, easy-to-use business telephone solution for organizations of any size.” The product page touts tentpoles like:
- Work from anywhere: Your Voice line works on mobile devices, laptops, and supported deskphones so you can stay connected at work, home, or on-the-go.
- Simple: Voice can be customized to fit your day-to-day workflow. Number assignment, porting, and billing are neatly consolidated in the familiar Google Workspace Admin console.
- Smart: Voice uses Google AI to help save you time by blocking spam calls and transcribing voicemails to text automatically. Integrations with Google Meet and Calendar help keep the focus on what’s important.
- Scalable: Voice can be deployed instantly — and globally — from anywhere, with less administrative work. This feature includes easy set up of multi-level auto attendants and ring groups (also known as hunt groups).
There are three plans (per user / month) — Starter ($10), Standard ($20), and Premier ($30) — with availability in: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and US.
The enterprise nature is not necessarily a bad thing as it means Google Voice is bringing in revenue instead of being, so to speak, a money pit. Meanwhile, the lack of new features should not take away from the fact that it takes effort to maintain the Google Voice infrastructure and experience.
However, it does mean that consumers should be clear-eyed when it comes to feature requests. What Google Voice users want is RCS and the current enterprise state means that is less of a priority. Voice as a “Business Phone System” very much caters to phone calls rather than messaging, with features like supported desk phones, call forwarding, and ring groups.
That doesn’t bode very well for adding RCS support and building out the chat experience beyond basic SMS/MMS. Features like “Show iPhone reactions as emoji” (from Google Messages) would go a long way to make the texting experience better. On the audio side, native functionality equivalent to Call Screen, Hold for Me, and other Pixel Phone features would boost the calling experience. The app could be a bit more modern with additional Material 3 aspects.
One thing that might be comforting is that I don’t think Google will ever fully kill Voice. The backlash to that would be tremendous and akin to Google killing Gmail, even though Voice has orders of magnitude less users (“millions” in the US as of 2017). Deprecating a communication product that has been around for years and part of people’s routine is just unfathomable, especially when it does drive revenue. Google is simply stuck with Voice, though the one off ramp I see is migrating personal users to Fi Wireless and giving them free calling in perpetuity. The actual voice calling experience will not degrade (though it could be better), but the text side already is given the lack of RCS.
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