So in the "old" days when texting cost money, I got a Google Voice number, and when I got an Android, I used the Google Voice app for texting. It was somewhat problematic because it couldn't handle MMS, and we were just on the cusp of people starting to text pictures and even video to each other. Sometimes a person would text me a picture and they'd at least get an error message back, but often it would just go into the void and I wouldn't know about it. I think at one point there was a workaround where I'd get the image in my email.
Then I think the Voice app finally got MMS, but soon after that Google decided they didn't like Google Voice much anymore, and gently pushed me into using Hangouts for my texting, which has mostly worked fine. But it has always amazed me that a company that was begun as a search engine would not let me search my texts. They do get saved if you know where to look in Gmail, on desktop at least, and you can search that way, but people's names don't show up, just their phone numbers. And who remembers phone numbers anymore?
But it looks like Voice just got updated, and now I can see all my text messages in it, and Google seems sort of ashamed of Hangouts these days. And when I go into Voice I can now see all my texts, even though they still go to Hangouts. And there's a nice big search button up top, so with great anticipation I pressed it and tried to search my texts..... and it still only searches my voicemail.
So, does anyone know the backstory to all of this? Should I get rid of Hangouts and go back to texting from Voice? I never used any other aspect of Hangouts so I don't really care about it.