The point of google voice?

[Eric1987]

I dont see why everyone loves it. Can someone explain? I have visual voicemail. I am on an evo4g.

 

[Cory Streater]

I use it primarily to call Canada without paying long distance. Others like that it gives you a single # to point all your phones to. Visual Voicemail isn't built into all Android phone's like it is in the EVO. On the Incredible there's a built-in app, but there's a monthly fee associated with it.

 

[Eric1987]

Well I only have one phone and I never dial out of country and I dont think I am getting charged extra for my VVM on sprint. Would there be a point for me obtaining a number from google voice?

 

[Cory Streater]

Not really in my opinion.

 

[tony bag o donuts]

I have it, but don't use it as much as I should.
I am an architect by day, photographer on nights and weekends.
We can't have our phones on at work so I have GV set to ring my phone and my wife's phone when people call to book weddings, etc.
This helps cut down on telemarketers or salesmen calling and also if I can't get the call my wife can answer it.

 

[gabbott]

You could use it as a "throw away" number to give out to someone you'd rather not have to give your actual number. i.e. for a craigslist transaction.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

I was using google voice on my pre for the transcriptions and ability to play the message back when I wanted to. Since the EVO has visual voicemail would anybody recommend still doing this? I know the advantage is access from any computer, but the convenience of having them on my phone almost negates that. Does Android store the google voice voicemails on the phone, or is there an option to do that? I would like to be able to have them on the phone and stored on google.

 

[bmoore]

Biggest thing for me is I can setup groups and then record separate answer messages for each group. So I have a group/message for friends, one for family, one for my wife, and all others go to my business answer message. Really nice.

Another thing I find useful is being able to check my messages from a PC. If I miss a call, I don't even have to touch my phone. I just login at voice.google.com from any computer and I can either read, or listen to the message. This works for me because I'm at a computer most of my work day.

Been using it for about a year or so. I couldn't go back to conventional voice-mail at this point.

 

[bmoore]

Oh n if ur a playa', u can record a answer message for each'a'dem ho's.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Oh n if ur a playa', u can record a answer message for each'a'dem ho's.

Made my day!

 

[dtboos]

Its my business number. Even for personal use, you get all your voicemails delivered online in an email and searchable format, so you never have to delete them. Get translated texts sent to phone (or in GV app). You can have different voicemails for different people, you can record coversations and you can make cheap international calls. You can have it forwarded to your friends house, to their cabin in the remote woods, you can have it forwarded to your home phone + cell phone, ect. Its an extremely useful tool for me.

And your # never changes, which is especially nice for your cable provider, or insurance ect where you don't have to update your number with them if you switch cell #'s or home phones.

 

[Hurleygm]

You could use it as a "throw away" number to give out to someone you'd rather not have to give your actual number. i.e. for a craigslist transaction.

This is what I use it for. I sometimes make calls to customers I dont want knowing my "real" number.

 

[gspeed]

If you text a lot then Google Voice is extremely beneficial. I don't like paying the carriers a monthly fee for texting, as I feel texting is really a data service and I'm already paying for data.

Cheap intl calling on a mobile device is also a plus. Number management, call screening, call blocking, etc.

No point in paying the carriers any extra change if there's free service provided on your device.

 

[takeshi]

I dont see why everyone loves it.

Not everyone does. Like most other things it's not one-size-fits-all.

I only use GV. I don't even know what my real number is. GV virtualizes my number so it doesn't matter what phone(s) I decide to use. That was handy when I decided to not port my cell number to drop some unwanted callers yet still wanted calllers to be able to contact me via a single phone number. The transition from my former device to the current one was seamless to them.

GV rings my cell and my work landline (except after hours on weekdays and not at all on weekends since my work voicemail tends to intercept calls). Reception in my building is poor regardless of carrier. GV allows me to answer and place personal calls using my office landline without worrying about reception issues. I can also transfer calls from one to the other which is handy for those end-of-day teleconferences.

Unwanted call handling is a plus IMO. I can designate callers that go directly to voicemail with no notification or callers that get a number not in service message. This was very handy after applying for a mortgage with BofA since they apparently call you hundreds of times a day after you apply. I don't see the point in using it as a "throwaway number" since you can just use it as your number and utilize its features to handle unwanted callers for you. Most GV features, except voicemail & transcription require that callers call you on the GV number to make use of them.

Voicemail transcription is rarely perfect but generally good enough that I never listen to voicemail messages. If I want to I can listen to them on my device or on any internet-connected PC (as well as forward them via email or save them). I can also send an receive SMS via any internet-connected PC. I do so quite a bit at work and even at home as I prefer the IBM Model M even over Swype. It also effectively works as an online backup of SMS messages. I can wipe my Droid and not lose anything. SMS is free but it doesn't really matter in my case as I have unlimited text anyway since my better half has no interest in GV.

I certainly don't use all that GV has to offer but I find it very useful. All the features are outlined on the GV site, various GV guides and countless threads on various Android forum sites which I recommend reviewing if you don't see the point but you're interested. It's really up to you to determine if GV is a suitable solution for you. Different people use it differently. Some don't see the point. The point is whatever you make of it.

 

[Bukzin]

I bought a copy of Google Voice for Dummies.

Very handy to have around when I need more info.

 

[milq]

I get txt with my data (BB on Alltel) but when I switch to verizon I will use google voice for txt. As mentioned by others, I currently use GV as the number I give to the utility company, etc.

 

[prometheus]

I'm a roofer.

When I go out of state to sell roofs I want to appear local. The boss REQUIRES we look local. Everyone else in my company buys cheap pre paid phones and gets a new phone number from the local cell phone store. Then they carry around 2 phones.

I pay $10 to switch my google voice number to a "local" number. I only carry one phone. People see a "local" number on their caller ID.

And, when you switch a GV number, they allow calls to the old number to continue for an entire month. All the other salespeople (in my company) have their crappy little pre paid phones and they lose out on business because they have difficulty trying to appear to be local in 2 different states.

Thanks to GV I sold a roof in Oklahoma, Iowa, and Colorado last week over the phone. And to the persons who bought the roofs, they all thought I lived right in their town.

 

[Kyle Gibb]

I love the speech-to-text translation. Its awesome to be able to see what is in a voicemail if you are somewhere noisy, like at the store or whatever.

 

[marclile]

I use pretty much all of the features that it lets you do but i think the one i use the most is the fact that i can be texting back and forth with someone, then when i get home on the computer, i can continue to send and recieve texts from the voice website.

got an EVO on launch day and it was a new sprint account for me so i setup "voice" on it and gave everyone my voice number. havn't given my "real" number out to anyone. now i have 1 number forever and i can change what phones it rings on to whatever combination i want.

it's really slick actually

 

[gspeed]

I use pretty much all of the features that it lets you do but i think the one i use the most is the fact that i can be texting back and forth with someone, then when i get home on the computer, i can continue to send and recieve texts from the voice website.

got an EVO on launch day and it was a new sprint account for me so i setup "voice" on it and gave everyone my voice number. havn't given my "real" number out to anyone. now i have 1 number forever and i can change what phones it rings on to whatever combination i want.

it's really slick actually

you should also use the GV extension for Chrome or firefox. It allows responding to messages within the extension and also has a notification system. Works very good.

Extension also captures all numbers on a specific page. ex) at computer you look up pizza places in google. In the results set the extension will display the numbers as links. You can simply click the link and it will automatically start dialing your phone. even if you have multiple numbers that you use for GV you can tell the extension exactly what phone to ring.

heres a link to GV extension for Chrome. The extension is created by Google themselves

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/kcnhkahnjcbndmmehfkdnkjomaanaooo