Verizon hasn’t always played nice with Google or its smartphones. But that appears to be changing, and in a good way, with the release of the Pixel and Pixel XL. Not only are Verizon selling them with virtually no bloatware (just a couple of apps, much less than what is on the Galaxy S7 Edge from Verizon), but they will also be updating them at the same time as Google. And now it looks like this integration is going deeper than just the Pixel smartphones. As the stock phone app that you’ll find in AOSP, now supports Verizon Voicemail, at least in Android 7.1.
What this means for Verizon customers using a Nexus or a Pixel smartphone is that you’ll get visual voicemail through the stock dialer app that is on your device. All you need to do is accept Verizon’s terms and conditions and you’ll be all set to go. This means you’ll no longer need to dial in to listen to your voicemails, or use Verizon’s own app. Making it a much simpler experience for all parties involved. This is a much better experience for Verizon users on a Nexus or Pixel than what they had on previous versions of Android. It really looks like Verizon is willing to play ball with Google, and it’s about time.
This is part of the Android 7.1 developer preview, so there is a possibility that it may be taken out before the final version of Android 7.1 is made available. We’ll cross our fingers and hope that doesn’t happen. It would likely only happen if users are having issues with the service, as that is usually the only reason why features are taken out of developer previews. There’s no word yet on when this version of Android will graduate from the developer preview and be a stable version of Android. But you are able to download the developer preview now as part of the beta program Google started earlier this year. Which made it pretty easy to jump on the developer preview and play around with the new version of Android ahead of its release.
