It might not be one of Google’s most-used services, but Voice fans are as dedicated as they come. Although the app doesn’t receive attention as often as many of us might wish for, today’s your lucky day. Voice is getting four long-awaited features that should make its calling and texting experience a whole lot smoother and more manageable.
Google is directly attributing all of its new upgrades to fan feedback, which makes them all the more exciting. First up is “Missed call reason,” which shows an explanation for why an incoming call was sent to your voicemail. You can set Voice accounts to block all incoming calls until disabled, so being able to see precisely why you’ve missed out on something is an important addition. Google is also adding call drop reasons to the app, so if a conversation is lost due to a poor Wi-Fi connection, you’ll now have the option to redial using your mobile network.
Missed calls (left) and dropped calls (right) now display a reason.
It’s not just enhancements to calling and redialing, though. While SMS might not be the newest technology on the block, it’s an essential tool for anyone using Voice. You can finally select multiple SMS threads at once when clearing out your inbox, a function so basic, I’m genuinely surprised it wasn’t already part of the service. Finally, iOS users now have the option to enable their own Voice number as caller ID when a call comes through. It’s a small change, but one that should make iOS users very happy.
Multiple SMS threads selected at once.
The ability to delete multiple texts at once is now available to all users, as are call drop reasons and caller ID options on iOS. Missed call reasons started coming to users on July 15th and should finish its gradual rollout over the next few days.
