Google Voice

I use Google Voice as a work number so I don’t have to give out my personal one. I love that it’s free and that I’m able to keep my work life and personal life separate. I also love that you can record as many voicemail messages as you want; when I’m out of the office, I just switch it to a different voicemail and I’m good to go. Having said that, there are a couple features I’d like to see/bugs that need fixing. I’d love to see more options for the display when someone is calling through Google Voice. As it stands, you can either have the name “Google Voice Call” scrolling on the screen without knowing who is calling, or you can “screen” the call so you know what number is calling, but you don’t know if it’s a Voice call or a normal call from your personal number until you answer and hear the “call from Google Voice” lady. Can there be a way to see that it’s a Voice call and also see who’s calling? I’d really like that feature. One of my biggest complaints is that do not disturb doesn’t seem to work. When I’m on vacation, I don’t want any work interruption whatsoever. I was visiting a childhood friend in another state and kept getting calls from clients despite do not disturb being on in the app. Texts, calls, voicemails, everything just kept popping up on my phone; it drove me nuts! Please fix this feature!

Google Voice claims you can make and receive VOIP calls using WIFI and mobile data, provided you configure that you prefer this option versus using your mobile phone number. However whenever you are off WIFI and on mobile data, the app says your “Internet Connection is unstable” so it’s going to use your mobile phone number anyway as a fallback. I assure you my LTE service is excellent and I have no trouble with Zoom and Skype and WhatsApp video calls over LTE, so a voice only call on GV should be a piece of cake. By saying your “Internet Connection is unstable” Google is just making up an excuse for their app being broken. It’s actually Google’s app that is unstable. Too bad they killed making and receiving calls in Hangouts because that worked perfectly all the time. UPDATE: Lowering rating to 1 star. Google contacted me to say I should test my Internet bandwidth while on LTE. Obviously the developers didn’t read what I wrote above about other voice and videoconferencing applications working fine. They simply cannot believe they have a bug and they’re going to blame it on something else. What hubris! And by the way I see similar replies to other poor reviews of this App. Google, Ookla Speedtest shows 11 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up under the worst of circumstances. If that isn’t enough for a phone call, I don’t know what is.

The latest version has some nice improvements but added some other issues. I like the ability to send photos and use emojis. I don’t like that it no longer recalls and suggests the numbers that you have sent texts to. Because I don’t link my iPhone contacts to it, If I delete a text string I now have to look up the number to start a new one. It should suggest numbers that have been used even if the archives are deleted and allow us to delete a suggestion we no longer need. The opposite is true for phone calls. It not only archives the phone numbers of calls you make but there is no way I have found to remove them from the archive. If these two issues were resolved I would rate it 5 stars. I'm updating my previous negative review to a positive 5 stars. Defects have been corrected and it is easier and more reliable to use. I especially like the ability to easily and permanently delete conversation and call history. Thank you Google !! Totally non functional for texts. Used the prior version all the time now there is no way to send a txt because the ">" that used to be there to send is missing. Also, after you enter the destination number you cannot get back to the message without starting over. This is a total train wreck. (Using iPhone 6s with latest iOS update).