Google Voice and Hangouts, Nothing But Lies
It’s bad enough SMS support has been delayed yet again, but Google can’t get their timelines or reasons straight.
Once again, the search giant has lied about its plans to transition Google voice features into its new messaging darling Hangouts. Earlier this week it appeared as if Hangouts might finally gain SMS support. In a presentation on Tuesday, Vic Gundotra announced that Google would roll out SMS support “Today.”
No asterisk, no ambiguity. “New Today:… SMS Support.”
Of course, shortly after, Google clarified on its blog that “Today” actually meant that the “The Android app… features will be available in a few days.”
Ok, a few days. More ambiguous, but surely that means by the end of the week, right?
Well, today (actually today—not Google’s understanding of the word),Randall Sarafa explained that Tuesday’s clarification wasn’t quite true either:
“Starting today, you can check out Hangouts v2 on #nexus5 , and over the next few weeks, we’ll be rolling it out to everyone on the Play Store.”
Technically, an ass might point out, Google kept its promise. After all, the new Hangouts features are available… if you buy a Nexus 5. Never mind that the Nexus 5 doesn’t ship until next week, won’t work on Verizon’s network, and that “Today” still means neither “a few days” nor the “next few weeks.”
But surely, that’s all, right?
Ha.
It’s Halloween, so Nikhyl Singhal had to don his Grinch suit and tell all the eager kiddies to get off his lawn. Just two hours after Sarafa’s postponement, Singhal broke the really bad news:
“Unfortunately, today’s update does not work with Google Voice numbers….”
When will it work? “Early next year.”
So, to recap: Google announced a much-desired feature and then managed to postpone it not once, not twice, but FOUR times, all within less than one week! It would be impressive if it weren’t so downright pathetic.
Google’s inability to announce and release desired features, however, is far from the worst part of this week’s asshattery. Singhal, in a bit of Orwellian douchebaggery also announced that Google would be cracking down on third-party applications. Why?
[W]e want to make Google Voice as secure as possible…. These apps violate our Terms of Service and pose a threat to your security, so we’re notifying these app developers that they must stop making unauthorized use of Google Voice to run their services and transition users by May 15, 2014.
Let’s break the argument down into its two components:
- Third-party applications are illegal.
- Third-party applications are insecure.
Illegality
Google argues that third-party app developers are violating Google’s Terms of Service, and gosh darn, they’re right.Google Voice’s Program Policies, which haven’t been updated in over four years, specifically state that a user or developer cannot:
Modify, adapt, translate, or reverse engineer any portion of the Google Voice Service.
Let’s focus just on reverse engineering. It means that a user or developer can only access Google Voice through Google’s approved and official Google Voice API. Which would be nice and great EXCEPT THERE IS NO OFFICIAL API!
According to Google’s terms of service, no developer may add Google Voice functionality to their app. But why would Google want to enforce a thing like that and stamp out an ecosystem built around promoting Google Voice or Hangouts?
A Safe and Secure Society
Google claims that third-party applications—actually, let’s just cut the niceties and call them terrorist killbots, since that’s how Google wants us to see them—are putting our beloved security at risk. Let’s skip past Google’s inability to keep the NSA out of its own datacenters and focus on the sort of insecurity that might affect our day-to-day lives.
Which apps might pose a threat to our security…
How about GrowlVoice, a client that allows you to text or call from a Mac’s menu bar?
Such a cute little guy, it’s amazing he managed to sneak through the Mac App Store, what with all of that insecurity just making everyone’s systems so not secure.
Or how about ObiHai, a darling little box that lets you receive calls to your Google Voice number on a regular old phone, the kind Mom still has?
Nope, it’s a threat to your security, too. Goodbye!
Sadly, only Donald Melanson of Engadget seems to be able (or willing) to call this what it is: a crack down. Everyone else seems content to mindlessly parrot Google’s nonsense—looking at you, Brittany Hillen at Slashgear (“These apps… are a security hazard”); Kellex at Droid Life (“They don’t necessarily want to move forward until they have a completely secure service”); Alexander Maxham at Android Headlines (“Google wants Voice to be as secure as possible”); Andrew Martonik at Android Central (“Google Voice is going to get notably more secure…”) [notably?]; and Liam Spradlin at Android Police (“an effort to make Voice as secure as possible…”); no credit to Chris Chavez, the simple kid at Phandroid’s Passover table who just doesn’t understand what all this is about (“The explanation is kind of weird, but it has something to do with 3rd party developers using Google Voice services in their own apps, and it creating some kinda of headache for Google.”)
Google, in its graciousness, has given terrorist killbots until mid-May to stand down and die, presumably because Google won’t have Hangouts ready to play nice with Google Voice until then. Of course, mid-May in Google-speak may mean who knows when, so maybe everything’s okay after all?!
Why would Google do this? Because they can. Because it will make them money. Google wants to enforce the bargain to which users never consented that if we’re going to enjoy their rides, it damn well better be on their playground. A dumb pipe they will not be. A vindictive and dickish one they most certain are.
Why let desktop users send a text through a menu bar app when you can force them to either use Chrome or remain signed-in to GMail on some other browser? Unwilling to play along? Too bad,go play somewhere else. Google doesn’t like native apps and so you can’t have any.
It’s clear that if Google is being truthful about one thing, it’s that Hangouts is the future of Google Voice. It’s just a shame that the future is so bleak.
