Google Voice Loses Voice post an Android Update

Nexus One users have been faced with the inability to use Google Voice. The voice over IP application is popular among users owing to its easy –on- the-pocket long distance call charges and the embarrassing aspect of this bug is that Google Voice is one of the applications that come pre-installed with most Android devices including the Nexus One and Nexus S.

Google voice shrouded in silence

Frantic users have been constantly bombarding Google’s help forum post the voice fiasco. Most of them stated that before running the updated Android service, the voice app worked fine. Initially some users thought that Google was blocking users outside of the US, but some have reported that inserting a US mobile operator SIM card still doesn’t grant access to Google Voice. Technically Google Voice is a US only service; however users could get access to the service by going through a few loopholes.

Google may have decided to tighten its noose around its voice app or must have hit a roadblock with the Google Voice client that it supplies in Android 2.3.3. One user said that he managed use Google Voice by rolling back to the version of the client that was supplied on his HTC Desire, which is yet to receive the Android 2.3.3 update.

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Google has chosen silence over speech in this episode. Several questions have been left unanswered, the key ones being - whether the problem with its Google Voice client is just shoddy testing or a tightening of controls. Either way the problems with Android 2.3.3 don’t serve as a good advertisement for Google’s software development performance.