Google updates Contacts to leverage Voice

Google has updated its Contacts service to leverage its Voice service. Users are now able to call or text contacts right from a contact's record. By extension, this means that the contacts feature in the company's Voice service is being replaced by its existing Contacts service as well.

The company has no doubt been using the same contacts data for each service, but now the two remain separate but are properly integrated with one another. To use the new feature, simply search for a contact and hover over the desired phone number, and either a phone or a chat bubble will appear.

Google voice controls

Click the communication method you want and a Voice dialog will appear to finish the action with.

Google voice dialog

For now, the traditional contacts control in Voice as well as the new Contacts control are present. It's reasonable to assume this will be the case for at least a couple of months. It may also be the case that not all users are being presented with this new feature as well.

The Google page explaining the change is, "About the new Contacts experience" (http://support.google.com/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2908776&p=contacts).

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