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Google just delivered a very long overdue update to Google Voice.

The company introduced a set of new apps for Google Voice on iOS, Android and the web — the platform's first major update in five years. The redesigned apps now support group and photo messaging, voicemail transcription in Spanish and sport a new layout that makes the apps easier to navigate.

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The new "cleaner and more intuitive" design ditches Google Voice's outdated look for one that's more like other messaging apps: conversations are threaded by contact so you'll no longer have multiple threads with the same person, and there are separate navigational tabs for messages, phone calls and voicemails.

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Google also gave text chats some much-needed updates, including support for photo messaging and group chats. (These feature were previously only available to Google Voice users who used the service via Hangouts.)

Credit: google

The company is also adding support for voicemail transcription in Spanish, a feature it says will get more accurate "over time."

Features like group chats and photo messaging are, at this point, table stakes for messaging apps. That Google Voice has existed this long without them says less about the features' importance as much as Google Voice users' reliance on the core service. But Monday, Google promised it would no longer be waiting years between more updates.

"Going forward, we’ll provide new updates and features to the Google Voice apps," the company wrote on its blog.

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TopicsGoogle