[ifthen]

At the risk of complaining about a free service, the most frustrating/humorous part is their voice to text translation service. While about the only thing that comes out accurate is the number the call came from, the rest of the conversation translates to phrases that are worse than any drunk dial line. Again, good for a laugh but not dependable enough to build a solid business model on if you’re trying for a large piece of the cell market.

[mcantor]

Oh, it's no risk. I openly complain about Google Voice and it has never been anything except 100% free-as-in-beer. I wish I paid for Google Voice so I could demand that they refund me. You see, I got on board when it was still called GrandCentral, and there seemed to be every intention to create a Real Product with Real Support that people would pay Real Money for. Then Google bought it, and I figured, "Great! Now it'll be a Real Product just like Google search or Gmail, but free, or at least affordable!" Instead I got this bupkus. Bah, humbug! etc.

The transcriptions are fabulous, by the way--I think a great business model would be piping them into a web service for use instead of Markov chains in spam e-mail. Once it translated an entire message from my Dad as an ominous string of "Ha ha ha ha ha"s.

[gcb]

the english transcripts of international messages are the best

[ylem]

I guess I've had better luck--the text translation is far from perfect--BUT, it has been sufficient for me to find out the gist of the message. Also, I get an email notification--for example, today, while I was at work, I got a call from a Verizon tech that they were at my house. My phone was in my office and I was in another location (with email), so I get the notification and see the number. This is useful for me.

Another nice use case is that when I go out of the country, I can see if someone called my US number--so while the service is not perfect, at least for me, I find it useful--and free ;>

[Goronmon]

I think that's the main problem, you have to get "lucky" in order to get text translation that is "sufficient to find out the gist of the message".