Google Voice is still Lacking
I’ve been a religious Google Voice user for awhile now, so it really bothers me that it is still lacking feature wise. Of course, I’ve been helping with some of these missing features (re: Google Voice for Outlook) but there are still plenty more missing as well as some minor issues I have with the service.
Multimedia Messaging (MMS)
For some reason, Google Voice still lacks this functionality. It can’t be THAT difficult, can it? I mean, the iPhone managed to add it before Google Voice, and if you really want to compete in the mobile business, its kind of necessary to have MMS, as SMS is pretty much irrelevant now.
Not only that, but any MMS that is sent to a Google Voice number is just lost. Couldn’t they at least be forwarded to my email address? I don’t like the fact that I could be losing incoming messages to /dev/null, and its even more annoying having to give out two different phone numbers (one for MMS and one for SMS).
Shortcodes
It is all well and good that Google’s own shortcodes work through Google Voice, but not so fantastic that nobody else’s does. I don’t want to be passing around two sets of phone numbers, and I’d love the ability to just set to spam a shortcode that is getting out of hand and won’t let me unsubscribe (if that ever happens). Developers pay tons of money to set up shortcodes, so why doesn’t Google Voice support them?
API
Google Voice is a Service. I use it with my cell, with my home phone, and with my computer. But in order to make desktop apps or things like Google Voice for Outlook possible, an API is almost necessary. I’ve managed to do it without one, but it still pretty much sucks.
Outlook Mobile Service
Companies charge tons of money for people to have the ability to send text messages through Microsoft Outlook. Adding the very simplistic SOAP server to the Google Voice backend would allow anyone with Microsoft Office to send text messages, forward emails, and receive reminders and notifications for FREE, something that is usually charged 10 cents or more per message. (Combine this with MMS as mentioned above, and it gets EVEN BETTER!)
Internet Fax Service
Google Voice already has “Receive Faxes” as a “Suggest a Feature.” Adding this and providing users on computers a way to send faxes would increase productivity and make the service even more useful to small companies and freelancers.
Keep in mind, these are just a few ways that Google could improve Google Voice, there are tons more.
What do you want to see added?