Google Voice Gets Improved SMS Delivery On Android

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Many Android users would have been informed of an update for Google Voice earlier today, as soon as I saw the notification I instantly thought Babel had arrived. However, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The update brings “improved the reliability of SMS delivery.” But if Google Voice is an IM client, shouldn’t the SMS delivery have been stable in the first place?

Google Voice has been available for a while now, since 2009, in fact. Whilst it’s a great application for sending/receiving free text messages, it’s lacking a huge amount of features, such as international support and free calling. Most of us have been lead to believe that Voice will be abandoned shortly after the release of Babel, so why is Google still updating it?

Babel is rumored to be Google’s new chat application, it’s said to provide users with the following features:

  • Access the same conversation list from anywhere (multi-platform)
  • A new, conversation-based UI
  • Advanced group conversations
  • Ability to send pictures
  • Improved notifications across devices

Many of features listed above are missing from Google Voice, this leads us to believe that Google’s new chat application is on the way however this doesn’t explain the update for Google Voice – maybe we’ve just got hold of the wrong end of the stick!

Do you think Babel is on the way? Let us know in the comments below.