Google Voice and SMS

[romeov]

So the question is, how long will it take google to fix this. You would imagine, they could do it very soon, given the fact that GMAIL already pushes so a lot of the code is already there. What do you guys think?

It's not an error they need to fix, it's a feature we'd like them to add.. I'm not trying to split hairs, but there's a slight difference..

I didn't say it was an error. I said they need to fix it. They need to fix it because it is a broken mechanic, since it obviously is inefficient for the user and renders texting to a state of being almost unusable. With that said, adding a mechanic to replace one that does not work well, is fixing the problem.

I'm not trying to split hairs, but there's a point to be made here.

I'm not trying to spit hairs, but this makes no sense whatsoever.

No, they don't need to "fix " anything.. This is a free service, that you do not pay for. You do nothing but get all the reward for Google's hard work. The SMS client works exactly as advertised. Google never promised push SMS, nor anything under a five minute refresh. If you want instant SMS, you pay for it by forwarding your texts through your Verizon SMS plan, and then have every right to complain when it doesn't work as advertised.

This is a new feature, that we are all very much hoping for, not a "fix" that needs a "mechanic" (?). Google doesn't owe you anything.

Sorry, but when people get all high and mighty about a service they contribute absolutely nothing to and get for free.... I repeat: for zero dollars, it kind of rubs me the wrong way.

Looking forward to the push implementation

 

[Silverwing]

It's not an error they need to fix, it's a feature we'd like them to add.. I'm not trying to split hairs, but there's a slight difference..

I didn't say it was an error. I said they need to fix it. They need to fix it because it is a broken mechanic, since it obviously is inefficient for the user and renders texting to a state of being almost unusable. With that said, adding a mechanic to replace one that does not work well, is fixing the problem.

I'm not trying to split hairs, but there's a point to be made here.

I'm not trying to spit hairs, but this makes no sense whatsoever.

No, they don't need to "fix " anything.. This is a free service, that you do not pay for. You do nothing but get all the reward for Google's hard work. The SMS client works exactly as advertised. Google never promised push SMS, nor anything under a five minute refresh. If you want instant SMS, you pay for it by forwarding your texts through your Verizon SMS plan, and then have every right to complain when it doesn't work as advertised.

This is a new feature, that we are all very much hoping for, not a "fix" that needs a "mechanic" (?). Google doesn't owe you anything.

Sorry, but when people get all high and mighty about a service they contribute absolutely nothing to and get for free.... I repeat: for zero dollars, it kind of rubs me the wrong way.

Looking forward to the push implementation

I honestly think there are some sort of personal issues you need to have resolved - your ability to communicate is severely impaired. So, let me see where to begin.

Alright, lets start here:

1. I never said anybody NEEDED to fix anything, and I am sick of people trying to conjure up words or intentions that I may have.

2. Secondly, you act like google is some sort of UNICEF or a non profit organisation. I am going to take the liberty and assume that you are completely and utterly clueless about the world and its workings, so I will explain some things to you. Google's revenue last year (2008) was $21.796 billion. How do you imagine they got that kind of money...oh, god. Who am I kidding. I will explain it to you. Advertisement. Yes, that is correct, they got their money by advertising. I will assume you understand the fundamentals of how advertisement works, and that companies will pay more money to have their products advertised if a service is more popular (and gets more web traffic). Therefore, if people use google services more, google will generate a higher revenue and make more money. All their programmers are getting paid because we use their services and companies want to spam us. Think of it kinda like TV or the radio - they make the majority of their money through advertisement - which is why they choose to pay money to movie companies and record labels so they can show us those things. The more people that watch or listen to those services, the more companies will pay to advertise. I don't even know how many millions of dollars 30 seconds of advertisment time costs, during the Superbowl.

3. Lastly, google did promise a service with a faster refresh than 5-minutes - or at the very least its employees did on their own forums.

 

[Modulus]

<irony>

I honestly think there are some sort of personal issues you need to have resolved - your ability to communicate is severely impaired. So, let me see where to begin.

</irony>

Alright, lets start here:

Can we end here instead?

1. I never said anybody NEEDED to fix anything, and I am sick of people trying to conjure up words or intentions that I may have.

Five minutes earlier:

I didn't say it was an error. I said they need to fix it. They need to fix it because it is a broken mechanic, since it obviously is inefficient for the user and renders texting to a state of being almost unusable. With that said, adding a mechanic to replace one that does not work well, is fixing the problem.

Personally, I forward GV SMS to Verizon SMS, so mine arrive instantly, and anyone that doesn't do this is just being cheap and complaining. Of course, all of you 'happy' verizon users are the reason Verizon is the most expensive carrier. With Sprint, I have free SMS at no extra charge. Even if I didn't forward SMS, it's not so terribly long that it's unusable, just inconvenient to our current society of instant-gratification brats. Besides, text conversations will always be annoyingly slow.

The Two Things about texting:

1. If you need to text back and forth more than once, just effing call them.
2. If you're in a situation where you can't call them, you're not being any less disrespectful by texting them.

Read more about the Two Things

3. Lastly, google did promise a service with a faster refresh than 5-minutes - or at the very least its employees did on their own forums.

There's always room for improvement, no matter how great an app seems.

 

[Silverwing]

The Two Things about texting:

1. If you need to text back and forth more than once, just effing call them.
2. If you're in a situation where you can't call them, you're not being any less disrespectful by texting them.

Orly? You honestly cannot think of a situation where it would be more convenient to text somebody multiple times instead of calling them?

Even if I didn't forward SMS, it's not so terribly long that it's unusable, just inconvenient to our current society of instant-gratification brats. Besides, text conversations will always be annoyingly slow.

I don't think waiting for a response to arrive right away, so I can respond to it, as opposed to waiting 5 minutes and then another 5 to hear back from another person would really qualify as an "instatn-gratification brat"

 

[m3kilpat]

So here's how I have texting setup for Google Voice. This has basically been said before but no one has definitively given a solid answer that has been tested.

If you want to receive free texting through GV and get notified instantly on the Droid with little to no "clutter" in your inbox do this:
1. In GV phones setting click edit and then uncheck "Receive sms on this phone"
2. Under Voicemail and SMS check "Forward SMS messages to my email"
3. Go to your gmail account settings and create a new label called SMS (or whatever you want to call it)
4. Create a new filter in the gmail settings. Put "@txt.voice.google.com" in the from field and hit next step. Check apply to label:SMS and check never send to spam.
5. Give out your GV # for people to text to.
6. When you receive a GV text you will be instantly notified via gmail. Respond to the text (in gmail) by pressing reply and sending whatever you want...it will go to that person's phone.
7. Press archive so that the message leaves your inbox and only appears in your new label sms.

This is the best solution for getting instant texts and keeping your inbox tidy.

Q: Why not check off "Skip the inbox (archive it)" so that I don't have to archive messages every time?
A: gmail on android will only notify you of new messages that hit the inbox. This is annoying and makes no sense to me...why would I ever update (sync) any labels at all? They will update if I go into them anyways, so why auto sync them if I'm not going to get an alert?

Tested and works until the GV android app is updated to push.

Edit: Also note that you can skip the whole labeling thing and just delete messages in gmail after you respond since you can just open the GV app and view the conversation there instead of saving the convos in a label as well.

And to clear up about getting GV app syncs anytime gmail syncs....it's bs. I get email about GV text but the GV app still doesn't update.

 

[moot]

I read through the whole thread and have a few questions I'm hoping someone might be able to answer. My droid has not arrived yet, but if you can have free text messages over GV, why would anyone pay for the monthly text messaging plan?

Does text messaging with GV only work if others have GV as well? For example, if someone used their cell phone to send me a regular text message, would I not be able to receive it if I was only using GV? i.e. GV does not support other people sending regular text messages to your phone, and only GV text messages?

 

[Silverwing]

I read through the whole thread and have a few questions I'm hoping someone might be able to answer. My droid has not arrived yet, but if you can have free text messages over GV, why would anyone pay for the monthly text messaging plan?

Does text messaging with GV only work if others have GV as well? For example, if someone used their cell phone to send me a regular text message, would I not be able to receive it if I was only using GV? i.e. GV does not support other people sending regular text messages to your phone, and only GV text messages?

The point is, if they implement push for GV then realistically, nobody who has access to traditional Verizon text messaging would be doing it anymore since you can use data to do it and you already pay for infinite data ($30 a month) if you have a smart phone.

You can use GV to text anybody who has a cellular device that is capable of receiving texts and you can text anybody who has GV on their cellular device, too. In other words, anybody can text you and you can text anybody with GV.

 

[fegul]

I read through the whole thread and have a few questions I'm hoping someone might be able to answer. My droid has not arrived yet, but if you can have free text messages over GV, why would anyone pay for the monthly text messaging plan?

Does text messaging with GV only work if others have GV as well? For example, if someone used their cell phone to send me a regular text message, would I not be able to receive it if I was only using GV? i.e. GV does not support other people sending regular text messages to your phone, and only GV text messages?

Google Voice has some limitations
-Can't send messages to more than one contact at a time
-Doesnt do picture messaging

The reason some people pay for the monthly plan is for convenience. In order to txt through GV, you have to use the Google Voice application which isn't as full-featured as the main text app. The Google Voice app isn't as tightly integrated with the phone as the main SMS application but it's free and it works (and I love replying to txts through my email)

Those are really the main differences that I've noticed

 

[Silverwing]

Yeah, that is a valid point, you can't send MMS. It is a big deal to some people, it isn't to me.

 

[RoBo92]

Thank you!!!

So here's how I have texting setup for Google Voice. This has basically been said before but no one has definitively given a solid answer that has been tested.

If you want to receive free texting through GV and get notified instantly on the Droid with little to no "clutter" in your inbox do this:
1. In GV phones setting click edit and then uncheck "Receive sms on this phone"
2. Under Voicemail and SMS check "Forward SMS messages to my email"
3. Go to your gmail account settings and create a new label called SMS (or whatever you want to call it)
4. Create a new filter in the gmail settings. Put "@txt.voice.google.com" in the from field and hit next step. Check apply to label:SMS and check never send to spam.
5. Give out your GV # for people to text to.
6. When you receive a GV text you will be instantly notified via gmail. Respond to the text (in gmail) by pressing reply and sending whatever you want...it will go to that person's phone.
7. Press archive so that the message leaves your inbox and only appears in your new label sms.

This is the best solution for getting instant texts and keeping your inbox tidy.

Q: Why not check off "Skip the inbox (archive it)" so that I don't have to archive messages every time?
A: gmail on android will only notify you of new messages that hit the inbox. This is annoying and makes no sense to me...why would I ever update (sync) any labels at all? They will update if I go into them anyways, so why auto sync them if I'm not going to get an alert?

Tested and works until the GV android app is updated to push.

Edit: Also note that you can skip the whole labeling thing and just delete messages in gmail after you respond since you can just open the GV app and view the conversation there instead of saving the convos in a label as well.

And to clear up about getting GV app syncs anytime gmail syncs....it's bs. I get email about GV text but the GV app still doesn't update.

By far, one of the most helpful, informative posts I've read in quite a while.

Cheers :icon_ banana:

 

[moot]

I read through the whole thread and have a few questions I'm hoping someone might be able to answer. My droid has not arrived yet, but if you can have free text messages over GV, why would anyone pay for the monthly text messaging plan?

Does text messaging with GV only work if others have GV as well? For example, if someone used their cell phone to send me a regular text message, would I not be able to receive it if I was only using GV? i.e. GV does not support other people sending regular text messages to your phone, and only GV text messages?

Google Voice has some limitations
-Can't send messages to more than one contact at a time
-Doesnt do picture messaging

The reason some people pay for the monthly plan is for convenience. In order to txt through GV, you have to use the Google Voice application which isn't as full-featured as the main text app. The Google Voice app isn't as tightly integrated with the phone as the main SMS application but it's free and it works (and I love replying to txts through my email)

Those are really the main differences that I've noticed

Think you for your reply. You would still need a separate google phone number for other people to text and call you, to make use of google voice. Is that correct? Thanks!

 

[JoeFresco]

Yes, that is correct. And you have to get everyone to use that second #.

 

[ipawd1]

Exactly how do I get google voice to play my traditional Verizon Wireless voicemail for the google voice voicemail? I dont want to re-record it. Is this possible?

 

[serveitup911]

Thanks, m3kilpat, for your step-by-step.

At first, I had a filter to send sms directly to an archive folder, but I soon realized that I did not get notifications (a Gmail oversight in my opinion - I still want to be notified if a new email comes in)

Your recommended solution is the best I can find for right now. At first I thought the texts would really clutter my inbox because I often have long sms conversations. But, I forgot that a back and forth conversation uses just one thread, so the clutter is not bad. Plus, I can archive with one tap.

So, thank you.

 

[pushdrops]

At first, I had a filter to send sms directly to an archive folder, but I soon realized that I did not get notifications (a Gmail oversight in my opinion - I still want to be notified if a new email comes in)

It's actually a feature - there are some emails that at times i get plenty of and do not want the nofication for all of them (so set directly to archive).

Isn't all of this stuff cool ?