We’re hurtling toward the loss of something big. Finally, after months of speculation, Apple is about to introduce its first-ever folding smartphone. And once it does, the conversation will change as the annual iPhone rumor season is replaced with the reality of whatever Apple unveils.

Except, it won’t quite be the same as in the past. Because no sooner will new Apple CEO John Ternus finish his iPhone announcement keynote speech tomorrow than the speculation will shift to next year’s 20^th-anniversary iPhone, what’s coming to the iPhone 18 and e-series iPhones, and expectations around Apple’s upcoming wave of smart home products, including health and home security services. There’s a lot going on.

Meet John Ternus

Having a lot going on is one of the prime expectations of Apple under its new boss. A family man with a wife and kids, he’s led Apple’s hardware division for five years after an eight-year stint running hardware engineering. He joined the company in 2001 and is described as a highly competent, hugely talented, and modest by nature. 

His hobby is quite revealing — he drives race cars, is a regular at California’s Laguna Seca Raceway, and owns an incredibly rare 2019 Porsche 935. To me it suggests a calm, competent, individual with excellent mental and physical reflexes who can make life or death decisions at speed. He’s also deeply committed to good product design.

He’ll need that calm embrace of speed and adrenaline to manage the company his predecessor, Tim Cook, led to become the world’s most valuable firm. 

A hard act to follow

He’s also got a hard act to follow, as while Cook had to carve out his reputation in the shadow of Steve Jobs, Ternus must sculpt his own destiny in the shadow of Cook, who managed to make shareholders of record in 2011 around 20 times richer by the time he quit. (Apple stock rose from $13.74 per share on a split adjusted basis to $319.97 per share today.)

While Cook was frequently criticized for not being a product guy, he presided over the launch of the Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Silicon, and the Vision Pro, and helped grow Apple’s services income to become its second-biggest product category, diversifying Apple’s revenue and creating financial stability. That’s no easy task.

Building his own team

Can Ternus improve on that? He’s certainly being positioned as someone who can. His deep experience in hardware has led to expectations that Apple will double down on product under his watch, so a great deal is expected of him in consequence. He is also putting together a hardware-focused team, including Laura Legros, former vice president of hardware engineering, as a direct report.

What will we see of this tomorrow? To be fair, while he will lead the announcement on the keynote stage, development of this first tranche of products took place under the leadership of Cook, and while Ternus will have had a big hand in development, this year’s Apple event should be seen as a moment of transition. 

“I’m just as excited about what lies beyond that, including the incredible products already in the works and the ones we haven’t even imagined yet that we’ll dream up and create together. There’s no team in the world I’d rather build the future with,” Ternus told Apple staff in his first memo as CEO.

It’s what Apple does in the next couple of years that will truly define the new leadership. He’s literally been CEO for a week!

What to expect on Sept. 9

Here’s my TL; DR list:

• First folding iPhone: Apple’s response to folding devices from Samsung, Google, Huawei, Xiaomi. It’s expected to have a highly durable, near invisible hinge and a powerful 2nm A20 chip around 20% more performant than the 17 series devices; Touch ID; a 48MP camera; and be able to unfold from a 5.5-in. to a 7.8-in. display. Potentially called iPhone Ultra, some predict it might be the “iPhone Duo” or “iPhone Fold.” It’s likely to cost $2,000+.
• iPhone 18 Pro series: Equipped with a fantastic new display, smaller Dynamic Island, 48MP main camera, and telescopic lens and supported by a fresh tranche of pro-photography features, the 18 Pro/Pro Max range will also use A20 chips. Both the fold and Pro devices will carry significantly more RAM, enabling them to handle on-device AI tasks. Apple is expected to introduce the iPhone 18, iPhone Air 2, and iPhone 18e devices at a spring 2027 event. Prices on all iPhones are expected to increase by $100 or more, depending on model.
• Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4: While Apple is thought to be working on new designs for next year, this year’s models will — for the first time in years — include an improved processor, better networking, and more accurate heart monitors. A model with a ceramic body is expected, while the devices will be equipped with additional storage, and integrated satellite emergency features. 
• AirPods 5: Earlier speculation about cameras inside AirPods remains, but these aren’t expected at the launch. Instead, Apple’s AirPods 5 will be boosted with a new H3 Wireless Chip for better voice isolation, noise cancellation, and spatial audio. They may also provide some basic health monitoring features with a built-in temperature sensor and heart rate monitoring.
• Smart home products: Apple is still expected to introduce additional products for smart homes, including an Apple TV with a faster processor and SiriAI support, a HomePod mini upgrade, and — potentially — a new home hub. The latter could effectively be a combination of an iPad with a HomePod to run apps, control smart devices, take and make calls, and run Siri.

Finding the next big thing

While all these products are important to the company, the smart home devices should demand attention (if they appear at all), as the indicators suggest Apple intends to explore the smart home space with a range of future hardware, including domestic robotics, security services, and smart devices. This hardware proliferation in new markets could end up becoming one of the hallmarks of Ternus’ Apple leadership, as will Apple’s AR spectacles (once they are introduced). 

Equally, it cannot be ignored that one of Ternus’ main tasks since becoming vice president of hardware has been the introduction of new Macs and the transition to Apple Silicon. So he’ll be expected to strike a balance between improving Apple’s traditional product lines while racing his company toward new and emerging opportunities in hardware. (I believe Apple should pay much more attention to the enterprise space within that.) 

Apple’s little AI problem

The biggest challenge to all of this will be Apple’s success in implementing AI that’s good enough to get things done while avoiding the unexpected dangers of poor implementation. We don’t want AI agents corroding smart home security, for example, which is why Ternus seems likely to maintain Cook’s focus on security and privacy as enabling technologies to support trusted hardware/software product designs.

Another thing? Tomorrow’s keynote will likely begin with the single word, “Hello,” and feels very likely to also include that classic Apple keynote line, “…One more thing.”

We’ll find out more as the conversation moves from speculation to reality after the 10am (PT) keynote.

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Apple continues work to get White House go-ahead to source memory from Chinese supplier CXMT, which the US government has placed restrictions on.

For Apple, the issue comes down to simple math. With the cost of making iPhones up 38% because of eye-watering memory price increases — up almost 7-fold since the beginning of 2025 — it makes sense to make pragmatic choices when it comes to sourcing supply, particularly when other computer companies (including HP and Acer) already obtain memory from CXMT.

US resistance to the plan is that because of the way Apple packages memory on chip, the use of that memory might partly contravene the technology transfer restrictions the US has in place. Note: use of off-the-shelf components is fine.

Apple has been lobbying to use memory from the supplier only on devices made and sold in China and would likely argue this is reasonable given that both HP and Acer already use CXMT memory in products sold outside the US. 

Why it’s really about supply

The iPhone maker’s dilemma isn’t just about memory price, it’s also about ensuring it has enough component supply to satisfy demand for its products. This is plausibly a bigger challenge for the company, which is already warning of constrained supply because of lack of available memory. Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix have allegedly already sold through all their DRAM production for 2027, which only sharpens Apple’s case to secure alternate sources.

With that in mind, it matters that China consumes around 20% of all Apple hardware sold globally. All the company needs is the go-ahead to use RAM from CXMT in those Chinese-made, China-sold devices.

That alone would effectively grow its usable memory supply by the same amount, because the non-restricted memory it currently has to use in Chinese-market products could be freed up for devices sold elsewhere, with CXMT covering the China-sold units instead.

With demand for its products accelerating —even amid a broad industry downturn — Apple really wants to make sure it has enough of the component to meet demand. Those powerful, on-premises 1.5TB RAM-equipped M7 Ultra Mac Studio AI clusters won’t exist unless it’s possible to find memory to put inside them.

The timeline challenge

The proposed arrangement with CXMT might not be a quick fix. Recent reporting indicated the company has already reached its production capacity for 2026, though it is working to double capacity by 2028. Apple has already tested memory chips from the company across products including iPhones and MacBooks.

While Apple this year has applied steep price increases across all its products (except for iPhones), it is now expected to increase the cost of the current iPhone 17 models perhaps as soon as this week. 

Market reports already warn that Apple will raise prices on its soon-to-debut iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra devices next month, and we expect availability to be constrained, once again as a result of RAM shortages. Even if Apple gets the go-ahead to work with CXMT to close the gap, the positive impact of that arrangement is unlikely to kick in before next year.

Enjoy the pain

Elsewhere, big memory manufacturers, including SK Hynix, have announced plans to invest in new DRAM manufacturing capacity. But this will not be operational until 2029, at the earliest.

This suggests constrained product availability and higher prices for the coming months — and the only way Apple, or anyone else, will be able to limit the impact of those price increases across the entire electronics industry will be if they can obtain additional stocks of memory from vendors outside the big three. If they cannot, you can kiss the age of abundance goodbye.

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Chinese smartphone makers have been followers in the global market, embracing the concepts and paradigms set in the past 20 years by Apple and Google. But AI may be giving the Chinese an opportunity to break away and set their own path forward. 

Specifically, Chinese companies are integrating AI more fully into smartphones, and also using AI for limited robotics in phones. Here’s what you need to know about these emerging trends. 

China’s ZTE recently showed its Nubia NaviX Ultra. The phone runs ByteDance’s Doubao AI agent, which users can access with voice commands or by pressing a button on the phone. The phone has no home screen and no conventional app store.

Another Chinese company, called StepFun — it was founded in 2023 by Jiang Daxin, a former Microsoft vice president and chief scientist at Microsoft’s Software Technology Center Asia — sells a phone called the StepX Neo. It runs a proprietary operating system called Step AOS based on Android, Linux, and an RTOS containing a built-in AI agent called Step Amoo. The StepX Neo splits phone functions into four primitives (communication, apps, files, system tools) that the agent recombines based on the stated goals of the user. 

Honor, a phone maker spun off from Huawei, has an AI agent the company built with input from Alibaba called the YOYO Intelligent Agent. It ships on Honor’s entire MagicOS 10-eligible lineup.

Note: an American company is enabling this. All three phones use Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) to give system-level access to the agents. 

None of these phones will become available in the United States. ZTE is banned from the US by the FCC over national-security concerns, while the StepFun and Honor phones are built for the Chinese market with no US version planned. 

All modern smartphones can run AI. By simply visiting the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store, anyone can download dozens of AI apps, including those offered by the frontier model companies. Or they can use the AI services and tools built in to phones by Apple and Google. 

How agentic AI phones are different

What’s different about the new agentic AI phones in China is that the operating system itself has an agentic AI layer that enables it to function across apps and instead of apps. 

While agentic AI phones represent a minority of the current market, they feel like the future. And that future is consequential. First, it’s a another step toward independence from Android. Google’s services layer is already gone from China. Now the Android app layer is being replaced by vertically integrated agent stacks owned by Chinese super-app companies. 

Despite building agentic features that cross app boundaries to a limited degree, Apple and Google are unlikely to allow third-party agents to replace the app layer of their mobile OSs anytime soon. 

Apple takes 15% to 30% of app revenue. And (according to an estimate introduced during the Epic v. Apple/Google litigation but not confirmed by Google), the Play Store has historically accounted for somewhere between 17% and 26% of Google’s operating income. The entire economic logic of iOS and Android depends on apps. An agentic layer that dissolves those apps into tasks isn’t something either company wants to think about. The Chinese OEMs can blow up the app model because they had no stake in it. 

Meanwhile, the AI trend is suffocating mobile app in-app purchases, which dropped by roughly 40% by early 2026, even as people pay more for those purchases compared to a few years ago (because they’re dominated by subscriptions to AI and vibe-coded apps). In other words, even inside the app stores, there’s a shift from the old app model to AI replacements. 

AI is not only changing the software model, but the hardware model, too. 

Robot phones

Another categorical way China is splitting off from the global smartphone concept is the nascent market of robot phones. A robot phone is one that uses AI to control physical robotic components on an actual phone. 

The leading contender in this field is a device called the Honor Robot Phone, which I wrote  about in March. A leaked unboxing video of the Honor Robot Phone appeared this week on the Chinese social network Weibo.

The robotic element is a gimbal with a 200-megapixel camera on it. One basic use is that the phone can remain stationary while propped up on a table or clamped to a tripod, while the camera tracks a moving subject using AI. Another use is to walk while using it and let the gimbal smooth out the jiggling and movement. Software on the phone also enables automated cinematic special effects. 

But the real leap forward is in “self expression” for the phone. The Honor Robot Phone exhibits subtle Attachment Economy features. It shakes its “head” no and nods yes. And it can do a “backflip” to “cheer you up.” The phone gets a personality. 

Honor plans to launch the phone on Aug. 12 in China. 

So-called “robot phones” are even more rare in China than agentic AI phones. Still, the Honor Robot Phone represents another Chinese departure from the Silicon Valley smartphone hardware model of a static pane of glass. The Honor Robot Phone has a body. It feels like the future, too, as it’s one of the rare products in the emerging Attachment Economy, where humanlike attributes (in this case, gestures and body language) are deployed to make the consumer more “attached” to devices that seem like they have thoughts and feelings. 

The AI future of phones

As the Chinese smartphone market splits off from the American one, it presents an alternative for the world. Because if the agentic AI phones succeed in China, they’ll almost certainly be offered internationally. 

That represents not only hardware sales, but the penetration of Chinese super-apps, Chinese financial services, Chinese AI-based information (and along with it, the Chinese government’s world view, we can expect). 

The only question is: Will the world prefer the Chinese agentic AI approach or the US AI app model? 

Adding to the complexity is the coming wave of AI wearables, most of which will likely be wirelessly “tethered” to smartphones that provide intelligence and connectivity. Soon, we’ll be conversing with our glasses and watches. Our glasses and watches will be “conversing” with our phones. And our phones will be conversing with AI models that represent the values, beliefs and biases of their creators. 

The Chinese agentic AI movement represents a split in how phones work and how the people worldwide interact with information, technology and each other. 

AI disclosures: This article is 100% human-written by the author, Mike Elgan. Some research, ideation, and fact- and grammar-checking was performed using AI tools.

Apple may be moving faster than expected in its modem development work, and Qualcomm’s latest comments suggest that shift is already reshaping the iPhone supply chain. 

Qualcomm overnight said supply constraints are shrinking some of its Apple business faster than anticipated. “It’s availability of supply,” CEO Cristiano Amon told Reuters.

While he wasn’t specific, that likely reflects the broader industry shortage in memory, storage, and everything else and means the company’s share of components used for the next iPhone launch will fall “well below” its anticipated estimates. Amon says this is part of a transition in which future Qualcomm income will be generated by AI datacenter demand.

The company also intends to boost modem prices on Sept. 1 (And remember, the patent licensing agreement between Apple and Qualcomm expires in March 2027.)

Given Apple is selling plenty of smartphones (even as the broader industry shrinks), supply constraints won’t necessarily be because of demand for the devices; this could reflect Apple’s plan to divide the iPhone release schedule across several months, as well as its future modem development efforts. 

Reports for months have indicated Apple plans to introduce new iPhones twice a year, with the Pro range updated each fall and entry-level devices scheduled for spring. It’s a move that’s likely to help build more consistent quarterly earnings by spreading demand across different parts of the year and could reduce short-term demand for components.

Things look a little different this year, of course; the expected introduction of the new iPhone Ultra means Apple will be making three new iPhone models, not the customary four – though there is also speculation the Ultra may not ship in quantity until later on this year. 

How much does Apple need Qualcomm? Not much

There’s also Apple’s own modem development plans to consider. We know Apple’s relationship with Qualcomm isn’t easy. The two firms were engaged in costly litigation before they found a way to bury the hatchet and work together on 5G iPhones while Apple developed its C-series modems.

Those C-series modems are already used in Apple devices. The iPhone 16e, 17e and iPhone Air carry Apple’s C1/C1X modem, with the C2 variant expected in the 18 Pro series this year. 

Apple’s new modem is expected to deliver better battery efficiency, improved cellular network privacy, and AI-supported network efficiency. So, your device should last longer, be less visible to your carrier, and better able to get a connection — even when connectivity is constrained. 

Next year’s 18-series devices will certainly stick with Apple’s modems, meaning Qualcomm’s remaining Apple business should be wrapped up in the release this fall. As Apple’s modem appears in more devices, you’ll probably only see Qualcomm modems used to provide mmWave support, which realistically has very little traction or carrier support outside America.

Waiting to replace mmWave

That view is supported by reports based on information recently stolen from Apple’s India-based iPhone partner, Tata. It claimed Apple will use the C2 in internationally sold iPhones Pro and Max, while keeping to Qualcomm in US devices.

If Apple takes the same approach with next year’s iPhone releases, it would mean only US iPhones — and probably not all of them — have mmWave. As a result, Qualcomm’s modems will only be available in a very small subset of iPhones sold. That would almost certainly account for the modem maker’s reduced Apple optimism. (Apple is also part of the 6G standard development group, which implies it hopes to find some way to replace mmWave.)

It also indicates Apple is less likely to renew its current patent licensing deal, though it could still require some licenses since Qualcomm’s SEPs include some 5G-essential technologies. The other takeaway here: Apple has a high degree of confidence in its forthcoming C2 modem, which makes sense given how well-received its C1 modem has been. 

A clean sweep

One more thought. It is interesting the extent to which Tim Cook’s Apple seems to be finalizing much of its business before the transition to new CEO John Ternus on Sept. 1. (It is also notable that Qualcomm also intends to raise its prices on the same date.)

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All right, quiz time: In a single sentence, can you tell me exactly what Google Voice does?

It’s a question even the most giddy Google-appreciating geeks struggle to answer succinctly — and for normal, non-tech-obsessed Homo sapiens, the answer typically falls somewhere between “Huh?” and “Wait, is that the same thing as gChat?”

Really, it’s no surprise. Google Voice is one of Google’s most complex, confusing, and poorly promoted services. But it’s also one of its most powerful — if you take the time to figure out exactly what it does and how it can work for you.

And especially if you’re using your phone for any manner of business, it can make a night-and-day difference in your ability to stay as connected and productive as possible, no matter where you’re working or what type of device you’re using at any given moment. Without exaggeration, it’ll completely change the way you think about your modern mobile devices and what a phone number even is.

Consider this your unofficial guide to getting started with Google Voice and then getting the most out of the underappreciated but potential-packed service.

The Google Voice business basics

We’ll start with the basics — and go back to that question I posed at the beginning of this conversation: What exactly is Google Voice?

In its simplest form, Google Voice is a cloud-based service that manages your phone number for you. Instead of being connected to a SIM card (or eSIM) and tied specifically to a single physical smartphone, your number lives in a fluffy Google server and is controlled entirely by Google software.

That arrangement ultimately frees your digits from their traditional shackles and allows you to communicate in all sorts of convenient, efficiency-enhancing ways — without any complex carrier-switching or awkward add-ons required.

At its core, that empowers you to:

1. Make and receive calls using your standard number on any device — phone, tablet, or even desktop computer. No one you’re talking to will know the difference.
2. Send and receive regular text messages through the Voice website or apps on any device anytime — even with multiple devices being connected simultaneously.

Together, that means any phone, tablet, or computer where you sign into Google Voice effectively becomes “your phone” — regardless of what type of connection it relies on or if it even has active cellular service.

So, for instance, you could:

• Install the Google Voice app on an old Android phone or iPhone and then have it ring whenever a call comes into your number, be able to make outgoing calls on it from your number, and be able to send and receive text messages on it with your regular number as long as it’s connected to Wi-Fi.
• Install the Google Voice app onto a Chromebook, an Android tablet, or an iPad and communicate with customers and co-workers in all those same ways from there.
• Sign into the Google Voice website on any laptop and handle calls and messages on it as if it were your phone — regardless of whether your actual current smartphone is nearby or even powered on.

And there’s more: Google Voice also automatically transcribes your voicemails and lets you listen to or read ’em from any device where you’re signed in. It brings Google-caliber spam filtering to your incoming calls, text messages, and voicemails, along with the option to have all of your calls screened for you. And it gives you a robust system of contextual call forwarding — almost like Gmail filters for your phone.

Like I said, this is one seriously powerful but also confoundingly complicated service. Let’s dive in and explore every last piece of the puzzle so you can make sure you’re taking full advantage of everything it has to offer.

Getting started with Google Voice

The first step to getting started with Google Voice is simply signing into the service and setting yourself up with a number. That part of the process is easiest if you begin on a computer.

For individual, non-company-connected Google accounts, Voice plans range from free to $20 a month for different sets of features. You can immediately choose a new Google Voice number in any available area code for free, or you can opt to pay $20 to transfer an existing number into the service. In either scenario, you’ll have to be in the US to be eligible. (Sorry, international pals!)

With company-connected Google Workspace accounts, Voice is available in the US as well as in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. Your Workspace administrator will have to activate the service for you, and it costs $10, $20, or $30 per user per month — billed to the company — depending on what tier of service is selected.

Either way, once you’ve got your number set, you’ll find yourself facing the main Google Voice dashboard. That’s where you’ll always be able to see your recent calls and messages, make new calls and messages, and read or listen to voicemails left on your number.

JR Raphael / Foundry

And as long as you have the website open, any calls coming into your number will actually ring your computer — and you can answer ’em right then and there.

JR Raphael / Foundry

We’ll come back to explore some advanced settings in a second. First, we need to shift our focus for a moment and get Google Voice set up on any phones where you want to use it — including the primary phone you rely on for your day-to-day communication.

Setting up phones with Google Voice

Now that we’ve got the core Voice setup finished, this part’s pretty easy:

• If you’re using an Android phone, download and install the Google Voice app from the Play Store.
• If you’re using an iPhone, download and install the Voice app from the App Store.

Either way, open the app up and follow the prompts to sign in using the same Google account you used in your initial setup on your computer.

On Android, you’ll be prompted to connect that device to Google Voice to allow the phone to make and receive calls using your Google Voice number. If your phone has active cellular service with a separate number that’s connected to your carrier, follow the steps to link the two and allow them to work together.

If you’re using an older or secondary phone that doesn’t have active cellular service, just skip that step. You’ll still be able to make and receive calls with your Google Voice number whenever the phone’s connected to Wi-Fi.

On both Android and iOS, you’ll then see the main Google Voice dashboard interface — with tabs for your recent calls, your contacts, your text messages, and your voicemails. The button in the lower-right corner of the screen will allow you to make a new call or start a new message, depending on which tab you’re viewing.

JR Raphael / Foundry

And on both platforms, you’ll be able to tap the three-line menu icon in the app’s upper-left corner to find the main settings menu.

In a moment we’ll explore the main Voice settings thoroughly from the service’s website, where every last option is available, but for now, take a quick peek at the “Making and receiving calls” (or “Make and receive calls”) and “Incoming calls” areas of the apps’ settings. Those will control exactly how calls to and from your Voice number will be handled on that specific device — if they’ll rely on your carrier-provided cellular minutes, assuming those are available, or if they’ll rely primarily on Wi-Fi and/or mobile data.

If you have any other phones or any tablets you want to add into the mix and allow to access all of the same Google Voice functions, repeat this same process on any of them, using the appropriate Android or iOS app.

Just remember: If you set up all those devices to answer calls, you’re gonna have an awful lot of things ringing every time someone dials your digits. So if you don’t want a bunch of different devices simultaneously demanding your attention with every incoming call, be sure to go into the Google Voice app’s notification settings on each device and make the appropriate adjustments.

Otherwise, we’re ready to move back to your computer to dive in deep to all of the Google Voice settings.

Exploring the Google Voice settings

All right — ready to get into some of Google Voice’s greatest powers?

Back on the Voice desktop website, click the gear-shaped icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. That’ll take you to the full Google Voice settings menu, where you’ll find every available option.

And my goodness, are there a lot of ’em.

The first section of the screen, “Account,” has all of your basic number and device management settings, for anytime you need to make any foundational changes. The only item there you need to think about right now is “Linked numbers.” If you want to set your Google Voice number up to forward to any other existing numbers — an office line, a secondary cell phone, or even a colleague’s phone — click the “New linked number” button and follow the steps to add and confirm the number you need.

JR Raphael / Foundry

Moving on, the second section of the screen, “Messages,” contains a single switch to have any incoming messages forwarded to your email (in the same Google account’s inbox). It’s a simple touch but a useful one, especially if you live in your inbox and want to make sure you don’t miss anything during the day.

The third section, “Calls,” is where the real Google Voice power starts coming into play. Under “Call forwarding,” you’ll be able to flip a switch next to any linked number you added to have all incoming calls on your Google Voice number forward to it all the time.

And directly beneath that, the “Custom call forwarding” section will let you set up contextual filters to forward only specific sorts of calls to different linked numbers. Simply click “Create a rule,” and you’ll be able to choose individual contacts, groups of contacts, or broad categories of contacts like anonymous callers and then tell Google Voice exactly what to do when those people ring you.

JR Raphael / Foundry

Back on the main Google Voice settings screen, the “Calls” section has some other options worth your while to consider:

• “Get email alerts for missed calls” will do exactly what you’d expect. It’s a fantastic way to make sure an important call never goes unnoticed.
• “Screen calls” will prompt every incoming caller to state their name and then place them on hold while you hear the recording so you can decide if you want to answer.
• “Incoming call options” will activate the abilities for you to record an incoming call by pressing the number 4.

Skip down from there to “Voicemail,” and you’ll find options to record your outgoing voicemail message and manage other voicemail-related preferences.

Under “Payments,” you can connect a payment method to apply credit for international calls, if you’re so inclined. In the US, calls made through Google Voice to other US numbers as well as Canadian numbers are completely free, while calls to other countries vary in their rates.

And last but not least, under “Security,” you’ll probably want to flip the switch next to “Filter spam calls and texts.” That’ll allow Google’s spam detection systems to stop suspected junk calls, messages, and voicemails from ever bothering you.

Whew! Told ya Google Voice had lots of fascinating layers, didn’t I? Hold the phone, though: We’ve got one more pair of powerful possibilities to explore before we call it a day.

Google Voice premium perks

Some of Google Voice’s most useful features are available only for higher-level individual and business accounts.

For accounts using either the Google Voice Standard individual plan ($20 per month) or the Google Voice Standard or Premier team plans ($20 or $30 per user per month), you can dial into a couple of advanced business-oriented phone management options:

1. You can set up a fully automated, professional-sounding phone menu system that answers calls on one of your Google Voice numbers and directs callers to different places depending on the time of the day and which options they select.
2. You can have Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, take notes on your calls and then offer a recording, transcription, and summary after.

Those same team plans (but notably not the individual plan) can also create ring groups that make it easy for multiple people to handle calls coming into the same number — like a single streamlined number for a sales team, for instance. The main number can either ring every associated team member’s phone at the same time so whoever answers first gets the call, or it can ring all of the associated numbers individually in a random order. Those plans include advanced Voice-associated data searching capabilities as well, and at the Premier level, there’s also the option to automatically record and transcribe calls without any manual action required.

All of those features can be configured by your Google Workspace administrator in the Google Voice section of the Google Admin console.

Oh, and one more thing: Any Google Voice number can connect directly to a variety of specialty boxes and handsets that effectively allow you to have subscription-free landline-style phones for your desk or home office. You can establish a standalone number through Google Voice for such a line and even have calls from your other Google Voice numbers automatically ring those phones in addition to ringing other devices, so you can easily answer any call anywhere you like.

And now you know, from start to finish, how Google Voice can transform your business and the very way you think about your phones. All that’s left is to create your account, get things set up the way you want, and then enjoy your newly enlightened approach to phone number management.

This article was originally published in June 2022 and updated in July 2026.