Google Voice gets a new look after years of no updates

With the functionality of Google Voice now rolled into Google Hangouts, Google has left its Google Voice app dangling in the wind with no major updates for five years now. It’s a great blast from the past if you want to remember #HOLOYOLO, but that’s changing today for some users.

Google has announced it’s giving Google Voice a makeover on Android, iOS, and the web to bring it more in line with material design and the current suite of Google apps. The update is rolling out today to some, but as always it could take a few weeks to reach your device. 

This cleaner, more material design keeps things more organized, too. You’ll notice that text messages, calls, and voicemails are now separated into their own tabs instead of presented in one place for you to sort through. Continued conversations are threaded, so you can keep your contacts in order, too. Google says it has upgraded the messaging experience to finally support group and photo MMS. Finally, in-notification replies are now available in the app, too.

Google says that if you’ve opted to receive SMS and voicemails through Hangouts, this doesn’t change that feature. You can still do that and try out the new apps to see how you prefer getting those voicemail messages.

You can download the Google Voice app from the Play Store to see if you’re one of the lucky few to receive the new update, or head over to the official Google Voice web page to see it in action. If you don’t want to wait, you can head over to APK Mirror and download the file there to get the update instantly.