My sole gripe with Google Voice has been in its lack of capability for using shortcodes and MMS messages. It appears, though, that we’re one step closer to the MMS side of things changing.
According to a quickie post over on the Google Voice Blog, Google Voice users who are on Sprint will now be able to send pictures and other multimedia messages via their Google Voice accounts:
“The multimedia attachments will display on their mobile forwarding phone and in their email inbox when they enable text to email forwarding in their Google Voice settings.”
Now here’s the other qualifier – It will only work when sent from a Sprint phone.
You might remember a few months ago when Google introduced some exclusive features for Google Voice users who were using Android devices on Sprint. Essentially the features allowed you to completely forego your Sprint number (or vice versa), and integrate Google Voice’s other features directly with your Sprint account.
While what we’re seeing here is close to MMS, it’s not the full-blown thing. There are caveats that come in the form of having to do the text to email forwarding, and the messages won’t appear in the users’ Google Voice inbox just yet. Still, it’s better than what was available before, and it’s exciting to know that the Sprint work with Google continues, even after the carrier struck a deal with Apple to be another provider of the iPhone.
We’ll be keeping an eye on things as the Sprint work with Google continues. I was assured, by one of the leads of Google Voice, that there are more features to come and that includes shortcodes…
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