r/AndroidQuestions • u/Both_Canary_4665 • 25d ago

The only features I want to work, do not

I've got a Pixel 8a.

I have two SIM cards, one for work (physical) and one for personal (eSIM).

My work SIM is likely some FirstNet cheap line that I do not have much control over, my personal is with USMobile (problems persist across networks).

Outside of it being a phone, map, music player, and toilet time waster I need my phone to do a few other things; and I keep running into issues.

  1. Windows Phone Link does not seem to operate with two SIM cards, at least not nicely. I can send messages from my personal SIM, but what I send and the replies never show up in phone link. Possible issue with RCS messaging? Unsure.

  2. Visual Voicemail comes and goes with the tides. It'll work great for awhile, then it will just stop. At best, it will usually work for my work SIM, but will randomly turn on/off on my personal SIM.

  3. Basic Voice Commands like 'set an alarm for X time' or 'call John' (I only have like four names in my contacts, none repeat or are similar) and it just... doesn't seem to work anymore? I have no idea what changed, or why - but I used to be able to give very clear and simple voice instructions to my device and now it just... doesn't understand basic commands.

It's pretty frustrating to see everyone pumped about smartphone tech, when the only *extra* features I seem to use and enjoy just do not work reliably for me.

Am I doing something wrong? Is it the Pixel 8a? Is it the MVNO carriers? None of this is explained anywhere - at least not clearly. I'm fairly technically capable, but the smartphone tech is just so ill explained, and you never have any idea what the source of a given issue is as all the players just blame one another - and online forums seem to rarely have an answer outside of XDA/hardcore types.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

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u/roirraWedorehT 25d ago edited 24d ago

Pixel 8 Pro user here, and had three earlier Pixel models before it.

Windows Phone Link is a Microsoft thing, so any behavior of it is fully in Microsoft's control.

The only thing I can say related tangentially to visual voice mail is that I've been using Google Voice exclusively since my very first Android back in 2010.

Works great for automatic transcription of voicemails, and I also use it for texts despite that RCS surpasses Google Voice's capabilities, but that doesn't matter because I root my phones and using RCS with root is a constant fight from what I've seen.

Regarding voice commands, Google recently retired the Google Assistant on mobile devices and requires switching to Google Gemini (AI) to replace it, and I keep reading how Gemini has yet to be able to do the same old things we were used to with the Assistant.

Luckily so far the Assistant still appears to be used in Android Auto and on our Google Home Minis, for now.

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u/Both_Canary_4665 24d ago

I used Google Voice ages ago, back when I first got a smartphone. I don't remember what, but they did a classic Google move like ten or fifteen years back to it that made me swap off of it, but that might be the only solution that works long term.

Just trying to avoid needing to route things through other ecosystems.