In rare move, Google updates Google Voice apps

That will change this week as Google announced an update to the Google Voice app on several platforms that will start rolling out today.

Google Voice was Google’s effort to combine a single number with your account back in 2009 – “one number for life” as the company said. The biggest announcement is really Google’s promise of providing regular updates and new features to the service. With the new update it seems that Google might be trying to position Voice as the standalone voice and messaging service it was meant to be. Messaging adds support for group and photo MMS, while search capabilities apply to both text and call history.

Before the era of porting phone numbers, Google Voice gave users a phone number. Google’s failure to update the service over the years has not discouraged a lot of users who found Google Voice very helpful. Google notes that voicemail transcription in Spanish is arriving as well.

Apparently, someone at Google found the Google Voice source code sitting on a dusty server somewhere. However, Google is making a push for Instant applications and as such, they are quite likely to be the future of how we use apps. It has also implemented in-notification replies, letting you type a new message to a contact without having to open the app.

All Google Chromebooks in 2017 will be supporting the Play Store And Android Apps.

If you have been mulling over buying a Chromebook, well, this year’s Samsung Chromebook Plus and Chromebook Pro, as well as ASUS Chromebook Flip C302CA come with this feature pre-enabled.

At the time, Google presented use cases related to visiting a place infrequently or even just once: when you want to pay for parking, when you’re visiting a museum, or when you’re spending the day at an amusement park.

Not all Google Voice users have the mobile app, since you can also make and receive Google Voice calls through the Google Hangouts app or in the Hangouts chat client in Gmail.