Hangouts’ hidden Google Voice integration shown in screenshot and on video
After the iOS version of Hangouts recently received the ability to make Google Voice calls over WiFi or cellular data, we had a good feeling similar functionality would soon arrive for the Android version. But even after hints of GV integration was initially found in Hangouts’ code many moons ago, here we are, countless updates later, and not a peep from Google about introducing any such functionality in Hangouts for Android.
Just as we were about to give up hope (or forget about it altogether), a crafty user on Reddit discovered an interesting prompt hidden inside Hangouts: Google Voice migration. While not quite live yet, the prompt can only be seen after enabling “All butter bars” in the Hangouts debugging menu. After being presented with the usual “butter bars” the “Migrate Google Voice to Hangouts” prompt suddenly appears, with the description reading, “Receive voicemail and send text messages in Hangouts.” Sweet, geebus.
Although it doesn’t appear the option to make VoIP calls using your Google Voice number is making the cut, Google Voice users have been screaming for Hangouts integration of any sort since last year’s overhaul. Guess all we can do now is continue to wait around for Google to make things official… some day. At the very least, let’s hope we get some of iOS’ other exclusive features like video messaging.
Video proof of the perpetually upcoming feature can be found via the YouTube video below.
