Google Voice has been released since a few years now but the phone service was left to stagnate by the multinational tech giant. Five years later, Google Voice has been granted its much needed visual refresh, bringing it in line next to other top Google products.
The company teased loyalists with the update just a few weeks ago. Google released a blog post regarding the changes stating, "inbox now has separate tabs for text messages, calls and voicemails". The blog post also added that, "conversations stay in one continuous thread, so you can easily see all your messages from each of your contacts in one place."
The biggest update happens to be the design, introducing a sleeker and more modern look that is consistent with other Google Apps. The upgraded app includes features that were previously solely available for users who required switching to Hangouts for functions such as voicemail and texting.
Photo MMS is one such feature that is fully supported on Google Voice across just about every major carrier and on all platforms. Capturing images is just as easy as any other application and images show up inline within conversations.
As much as this sounds like a basic function, MMS has long since been a sore spot for Voice. Sending MMS attachments by emails is a horror that shall never resurface again alongside other absurd workarounds.
Google stated that plans to maintain updates for the app from here on forward are in place. That is definitely a hard promise to keep on Google's part seeing how most of us had given up hope years ago. Regardless, it is refreshing to see how the faithful are rewarded.
Hopefully Google sticks to its promises and plans this time around. The updates are rolling out progressively and should hit users all over the world "in the coming weeks" according to Google.
