Google Voice Calls Crippled By Google Hangouts Upgrade Within Gmail

During last week’s Google I/O, Google announced some major changes to some of its most popular services, one of which was Google+. One of the changes they made to the service was bringing together all of its communication applications, such as Google Talk and Google Hangouts, and brought it together under the unifying umbrella of Google Hangouts. As great as an idea as that was, it seems a number of users are reporting some issues regarding Google Voice.

Users are reporting if they upgrade their Google Talk service from within Gmail to Google Hangouts, they lose a number of key features such as being able to set their availability status, but one of the most impactful features is the ability to place or receive Google Voice calls from within Gmail. Google Voice calls are still possible as you can initiate a call from within the Google Voice web app, which will result in calling one of your connected phone numbers to then route the call to the number you wish to reach.

Fortunately, those of you who would like to have this feature to use Google Voice within Gmail can always revert to the old Google Talk service, but considering how Google is attempting to unify its communication services within Hangouts, we’re hoping the company issues a fix for this soon as it probably impacts a larger number of people that they anticipated would be affected.

Daniel Perez
Categories: Cellphones, Web
Tags: GMail, Google, google hangouts, google voice, hangouts