With it, you can forward all of your numbers to one singular number, letting you answer calls from all your different phone numbers on the same device. Google Voice is a favorite amongst small business owners and large companies as well. It simplifies phone calls for everyone and brings everything into one place. You may feel like the last thing you want to do is get another phone number to add to your list.
However, a Google Voice phone number may be the last number you ever need. This telephone service is perfect for merging multiple communication channels into one place. And that is just one of its many additional features. Here is why you should stop carrying multiple phones and use this VoIP instead. Anyone who has a Gmail account can already make calls to the U.
The integration with Gmail also means that you can take calls in Gmail and Google Hangouts and answer them from your computer. Free texting is included in the Google Voice service. You can search the archive of your texts online to track down any information you may need. Your Google Voice number allows you to forward your calls to other numbers. This comes in handy when it comes time to get a new phone or switch cell phone carriers.
All you have to do is get a new cell phone number and forward your Google Voice number to it, or forward it to your old existing phone number. Though this feature comes at an added cost, it may be worth it for you.
Not only does Google Voice come with voicemail, but it takes things one step further and uses its advanced speech recognition technology to transcribe your voicemail into a text. You have the option to either read the text or listen to the voicemail. This is a great feature for those who need to determine whether a voicemail is important enough to leave a meeting or for people who hate listening to voicemails. One neat feature about this telephone service is that you can listen to voicemails as someone is leaving them.
Not only that, but you can also decide mid-voicemail to answer the phone by simply pressing the star key. This service lets you forward all your numbers and calls to one single Google Voice number. You can set up specific rules for the calls to determine what calls go where and when.
Another option is to set the order of importance with phones if you need to make sure you get a call. Or you can have all the numbers ring simultaneously, which is a great feature for small business owners or independent contractors. Filed under: Google How-to Reviews. How to use Google Voice New, 23 comments. Linkedin Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Do you accept them? Google will give you a choice of several locations in your region.
Not ad infinitum, of course; eventually, you do run out. Note: you can only associate a single phone number with a Voice number.
For example, I was able to create a Google Voice number using a Hushed number, and you should be able to use a Skype number as well. Grid View. Next Up In Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter Verge Deals Subscribe to get the best Verge-approved tech deals of the week. Just one more thing! Please confirm your subscription to Verge Deals via the verification email we just sent you. Go to voice. Once you accept the terms and service , click Continue to get to the page where you can find or choose a phone number.
On this pane, you need to verify with Google that you have an existing number. Once you click the Verify button and input your phone number, Google will text you a code you need to input into Google Voice. Get that code and input it here. Click Verify. You'd be forgiven for failing to notice, but just before the holiday weekend here in the States, Google slipped out an intriguing little nugget of information: For the first time in the services' collective history, Google Voice and Google Fi can finally now play together nicely.
Fi, if you aren't familiar, is Google's wireless service. It uses the same underlying technology as Google Voice and incorporates many of the same features, including the optional call forwarding system. But it lacks other Voice elements and, perhaps most notably, lacks the central Voice ability to have your phone number connected only to the cloud and not parked on one specific device at a time.
From the get go, using Fi has essentially required you to give up Voice. You haven't even been able to forward calls from a Fi number to a Voice number or vice-versa. The two services have just always been strangely connected and basically incompatible. Well, no more: You can now maintain a Fi phone number and a Voice phone number on the same Google account and even forward calls in either direction between the two. If you're already using Fi, you can transfer your existing number over to Voice and then get a separate, new number from Fi for your actual phone — or you can keep your existing number on Fi and get a new number or a newly transferred-in number, from some other source for Voice.
It's all a little confusing to talk about, but what that ultimately means is one of two things: In the first scenario, which we'll call "One Number, Multiple Phones," your actual phone number — the one you give out to people and use — will be controlled by Google Voice and independent of any individual phone. Your physical phone will have some other number assigned to it, but that almost won't matter because you'll configure the phone to make and receive calls using your regular, now-Google-Voice-connected number.
As a result of that, you'll be able to pick up any ol' Android phone, slap the Google Voice app onto it, and have it effectively be your phone in a matter of seconds. It'll make and receive calls using your regular number and give you easy access to your texts and voicemails. You could thus use an old Android device as a secondary phone that works the same exact way as your primary one — an "extension" of sorts.
You could even connect an extra phone to your Voice account and give it to an associate, assistant, or pet parakeet so they could make and answer calls on your behalf as needed. And you could set up any other kind of device, be it a computer or even a tablet, to act just like your phone and make and receive calls, texts, and voicemails via your regular number using its Wi-Fi connection.
Fi can technically do that part as well, but only if you want to commit to using the long-ago-abandoned and barely-hanging-on-by-a-thread-now Hangouts app , which has been on the brink of death for longer than I can remember and will go away entirely sooner or later.
In the second scenario, which we'll call "Two Numbers, One Phone," you could maintain two totally separate numbers that you give out for different purposes and have them both be available on your same primary phone. So maybe your Fi number is already your personal number, and you then bring a work number into Voice and gain the ability to make and receive calls from either number and send and receive texts as well as access voicemails from either number, too on the same single device.
So in other words, you'd transform your phone into a two-in-one, all-purpose hub for all sides of your life. It's easy to see that sort of setup being advantageous in any number of professional situations — even one in which multiple devices or perhaps multiple people have access to the same Voice-based number simultaneously — and the Voice app makes the whole thing easy as can be to manage.
There's only one real downside to moving an existing number to Voice and using it to manage your communications — and it's almost a comically "classic Google" kind of limitation: Once your number is associated with Voice, you'll have to use the Google Voice Android app for texting.
And the app, unlike Google's regular Android Messages app, doesn't support the next-gen RCS standard Google itself is aggressively pushing as the future of Android messaging. How much that actually matters is up to you.
For what it's worth, Google has been saying it's working to implement RCS in Voice for about three and a half years now. But as to if or when those alleged efforts will ever actually come to fruition, well, your guess is as good as mine. That asterisk aside, though, Google Voice brings an impressive bit of power-user flexibility from the past back to the present for Fi users — and it makes that same feature set available to pretty much anyone, on either the enterprise or individual level, regardless of what carrier they're using.
Now that it's back on Google's radar, it's a service well worth watching and mulling over. And with any luck, what we're seeing now is only just the beginning.
Want even more Googley knowledge? Sign up for my weekly newsletter to get next-level tips and insight delivered directly to your inbox. Contributing Editor JR Raphael serves up tasty morsels about the human side of technology. Hungry for more? Join him on Twitter or sign up for his weekly newsletter to get fresh tips and insight in your inbox every Friday. Here are the latest Insider stories. More Insider Sign Out. Sign In Register. Sign Out Sign In Register.
Latest Insider. Check out the latest Insider stories here. More from the IDG Network. The Android hardware truth Google won't tell you. How to make the most of Android's new Assistant add-on.
Google, modified by IDG Comm. Android Intelligence Analysis Android's underappreciated upgrade Is Android 12 about to pop Google's The 3 words that could spell trouble Google's 15 funniest flip-flops with
0コメント