Newsletter
Google continues working to integrate Google services and has recently been working on Google Voice and MMS messaging – Google Voice users would miss their MMS messages for lack of support. Alex Wiesen, a Google employee that “work[s] on Google Voice and other stuff,” has just posted that Google Voice MMS messaging support is up and running…at least some places. He posts:
“We’ve been working with nearly 100 different North American carriers to enable this feature – including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Bell Canada, Rogers, Telus, and many more – and starting today all these integrations are live. So enjoy those incoming pics, say goodbye to fomo (fear of missing out), and stay tuned for more Google Voice messaging improvements!”
With the integration of SMS and Google Hangouts, this also mean that if you use Hangouts for all messaging that you MMS messages will show up there as well – no more having to go to your inbox. After today – those on the right carriers – will receive both one-on-one picture messages as well as group MMS picture messages, although for now, the group messages will come through as an individual message – but hey, at least you will get them.
Google is trying to make this work for all North American carriers – fortunately, Bell, Rogers and Telus all came to play nice, so you should have no difficulties, although there may be a few glitches until they get any kinks worked out. What is strange for the U.S. is that Verizon is conspicuously absent from Google’s list…but they have thrown out the invitation to all carriers – “If you’re a carrier, and you want to enable MMS support for Google Voice, please let us know. We’re big fans of text messaging interoperability.” Hopefully, every carrier will jump on board to get this done so there will be a consistency among all carriers and Google Voice messaging.
You do not need to download any apps for this to work if you have been using Google Voice, Hangouts with SMS messaging…simply send off your picture message and it should work for you – provided your carrier supports the new feature. If you have been reluctant to use Google products, then download Hangouts, Google Dialer, or grab Google Voice and try them…you may even grow to love them. Please give us a holler on our Google+ Page and let us know if you have tried the new Google Voice MMS and how is it working for you…as always, we would love to hear from you.