Google Voice comes to iPhone and Palm WebOS

A few weeks ago, Alex Nicolaou, Engineering Manager, wrote about the benefits of the fast and feature-rich iterative web app. Delivering Google services via mobile browsers has worked well for the Gmail team, so we decided to follow the same approach with Google Voice.

Today, we're excited to introduce the Google Voice web app for the iPhone and Palm WebOS devices. This HTML5 application provides you with a fast and versatile mobile experience for Google Voice because it uses the latest advancements in web technologies. For example, AppCache lets you interact with web apps without a network connection and local databases allow you to store data locally on the device, so you don't lose data even when you close the browser.

One of the great benefits of web applications is that you don't need to download and install an app on your phone. Instead, simply point your mobile browser to m.google.com/voice and sign in to your Google Voice account.

Then you can make calls from your phone that show your Google Voice number as the caller ID. You can also listen to voicemail and read voicemail transcripts, send and receive text messages for free, and take advantage of the low international call rates offered by Google Voice.

For quick access to the most important features like "Dialer", "Compose SMS", "Inbox" or "Contacts," you can add shortcuts to your iPhone home screen or Palm Launcher -- so cheap calls and messaging will be just a single click away. And because the Google Voice web app uses advanced features of modern HTML5 browsers, it offers native app-like performance and speed.

Official Google Mobile Blog: Google Voice comes to iPhone and Palm WebOS

Google Voice returns to iPhone, thanks to VoiceCentral

Ever since Apple rejected Google Voice from the App Store, Google, as well as Voice users have been steaming. Sure, you can place a call or send a text via the Google Voice website, but in mobile Safari is not exactly the iPhone experience that users are accustomed to. Google Voice's website does not allow for a seamless and easy to use experience via a mobile browser.

TechCrunch is reporting that VoiceCentral, whose third-party Google Voice app was also removed from the App Store, will bring Google Voice back to the iPhone. Interestingly though, it will do it via the browser, completely bypassing Apple's app restrictions and revenue sharing. The experience will look and feel exactly as it would were it a normal app (swiping and all). Black Swan, as they're calling it, will feature everything you'd expect, with the only exception being your contacts. You will first need to import your contacts into your Google account before being able to use them.

Another slight annoyance, according to VoiceCentral, is that when you listen to voicemails, the audio will come from the speakers, and not the earpiece. This is due to the iPhone's way of routing audio from websites (using headphones will avoid this problem). Other than that, the app should look and feel like any other iPhone app. It even has offline support, allowing access to previously received transcriptions and texts. Black Swan is coming in early 2010. You can sign up for the limited beta at their website.

Here what it can do:

* Place calls through Google Voice™
* Browse your recent call history
* Listen to your voicemails
* Read and send SMS messages
* Import Google Voice™ contacts for easy dialing/SMS
* Review your billing and transaction history
* It can even be used offline to browse your contacts, call history, voicemails, and SMS messages. (Note: listening to voicemails still requires a connection just like the native app.)

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Google welcomes Gizmo5

Today we're pleased to announce we've acquired Gizmo5, a company that provides Internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers. While we don't have any specific features to announce right now, Gizmo5's engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience. Current Gizmo5 users will still be able to use the service, though we will be suspending new signups for the time being, and existing users will no longer be able to sign up for a call-in number.

We've acquired a number of small companies over the past five years, and the people and technology that have come to Google from other places have contributed in many ways, large and small, to all kinds of Google products. Since the GrandCentral team joined Google in 2007, they've done incredible things with Google's technology and resources to launch and improve Google Voice.

We welcome the Gizmo5 team to Google and look forward to working together to bringing more useful features to Google Voice.

Google Voice Blog: Google welcomes Gizmo5

Towards better transcription. Period.

Voicemail transcription is a popular feature of Google Voice. Having the ability to receive a transcript of a new voicemail by email or SMS and get a quick idea of what a voicemail is about, saves you time in deciding which voicemails are worth listening to.

Since transcription is fully automated and most people often don't talk in the same organized manner that they write, it is tricky to insert punctuation into a message. And reading long messages without punctuation can feel weird.

Today we made some more progress on transcript readability and launched an improved transcription engine with punctuation. Don't expect it to insert question marks for your callers' questions, but it should help make your message transcripts easier to read by breaking them into sentences separated by periods.

We hope you will like the improvement...


Google Voice Blog: Towards better transcription. Period.

Apple Silences Google Voice On the iPhone

First it was just apps that gave users access to Google Voice features, but now it seems as though even an official app from Google, who have traditionally been very close with Apple, will not (for now) see the light of day. GV Mobile and Voice Central, two apps that allowed Google Voice users to access the service on their iPhone have been pulled from the App Store for duplicating functionality, and an official Google Voice app won’t see release at all for the same reason.

According to a Google spokesperson speaking to TechCrunch, Apple received the app submission from the internet search giant six weeks ago, and “did not approve the Google Voice application.” Apple has bandied about the feature duplication defense before, when they rejected Podcaster prior to releasing their own integrated podcast direct search and download section to the iPhone’s iTunes store.

Unless Apple somehow plans to introduce their own built-in Google Voice support in the near future, a scenario which I find highly unlikely, then this particular use of the feature duplication line is completely ridiculous. Google Voice isn’t actually duplicating anything, it’s only reducing AT&T’s ability to make money, which suggests that the wireless provider has much more control over Apple and their approval process than I previously suspected.

Read more of this story at : http://www.theappleblog.com

Google Voice mobile app for Blackberry and Android

It’s been an exciting few months since we announced Google Voice. The feedback from early users has been terrific, and the requests for invites have been flowing in. We started sending invites a few weeks ago and will keep sending them daily.

At the same time, we continue to improve the service and address your requests and feedback. Among the most requested features are tools to make placing outgoing calls from your Google Voice number easier. So today, we’re pleased to announce a Google Voice mobile app for Blackberry and Android.

Previously, to place a call using Google Voice, you had to dial your own Google Voice number from your cell phone or use the Quick Call button online.

Official Google Blog: Google Voice mobile app for Blackberry and Android

One Million Numbers Strong, Google Voice Prepares for Takeoff

Earlier this year RWW reported that Google had made plans for the telephony service it acquired in July, 2007 called GrandCentral. GrandCentral was reborn as Google Voice,which includes all of GrandCentral's features and much more. Google Voice's free service will allow users to unify all of their phone numbers and transfer calls to all of their devices, convert voice calls to text messages, call multiple parties at once and make discounted international calls.

This week, John Fontana of Network World reported that Google has reserved 1 million phone numbers with communications and information services company Level 3. The company has not announced anything yet, but on the GrandCentral website it says "if you are a GrandCentral user, over the next few days you will be prompted to upgrade to Google Voice". These look like clear signs that it is getting ready to go live any time now, so check those emails and get ready to claim your number, they could go fast.



Google has continued to keep the old GrandCentral service, but has not allowed new users to sign up. Currently only GrandCentral users have access to Google Voice and new numbers are only available for American area codes. The GrandCentral users we spoke with love the service and are thrilled to try Google Voice. Our own Frederick Lardinois says it looks like a winner; "it takes the best features of GrandCentral and adds a number of important and interesting new features...clearly this is one of the most important products that Google has released in the last couple of months".

Judge for yourself. Below are three videos that show how easy it is to place calls, set up a conference call and how the phone calls are routed. There is some speculation about future integration with Android and we are certainly looking forward to that as well.

Read On To: http://www.readwriteweb.com