Remember the dustup last summer over Apple’s rejection of the Google Voice app for the iPhone? Everyone was pointing fingers and even the FCC got involved. Michael was so upset that he quit the iPhone rather than give up his Google Voice. Well, now he can come back because Google Voice is finally on the iPhone via its browser, and Apple can’t really do anything about it..
Google Voice will become available today for both the iPhone and Palm Pre/Pixi via a new mobile Website which will go live later today at http://m.google.com/voice. The new Google Voice mobile site shows your inbox with transcribed calls, which you can play from the browser. You can also send SMS messages or dial from the browser. The application ends up making a local call through your cell phone to Google Voice, which then routes your call through its own lines. When someone gets the call, they see your Google Voice number instead of your AT&T number. And when you get a voicemail, a notification even pops up on your iPhone with the transcribed message (through SMS).
It is built on HTML5 with most of the functionality of the original iPhone app, except that it cannot access the local contact list in your iPhone’s address book. It lets you manage a separate Google Voice contact list which is kept in the cloud instead. Google Voice voice routes your calls through its servers and acts as a new hub through which you can manage calls and forward them to various phones. You can also manage your settings and various phone numbers. The HTML5 makes it very fast, allows for local caching of data, and supports the voice tags necessary to play the audio voicemails through the browser.
Mobile apps like Google Voice really show what can be done in the browser and point to an alternative way to build sophisticated apps for the iPhone without going through the gatekeepers in Cupertino. VoiceCentral, one of the third-party Google Voice apps that was also pulled from the App store, created a similar browser-based version of Google Voice for the iPhone. Both of these apps went the browser route because they didn’t have any other choice, but you can hardly tell them apart from regular apps. Once mobile phones allow access to deeper phone functions such as the local contact list from the browser, there will be even less reason to create a device specific app. The Web, after all, supports many different platforms. With a few tweaks to the UI, the mobile Google Voice site also works on Palm phones.
Google vs. Apple is going to get very UGLY!
Must not be deployed yet so I’m not seeing how this is news? There has been a poorly stripped down browser based version for quite some time now, is the overhaul to the UI extensive or minimal?
Also, you’re google.com/voice/m redirects to some article from last summer (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/29/ma-activity-heats-up-in-july-to-96-billion/)
Great ! Now I can take all my voice messages with ease.
Nice ! I can take up all voice calls easily with this
Genius!
Google gives Apple the finger! Gotta love it!
Ah, finally, I can access my GVoice from my iPhone…and hey, it is even easier than the Blackberry app (which is a little odd and clunky).
HTML5 is the wave of things to come…unless you need 3D graphics and true game immersion, web apps / HTML5 is the new delivery platform.
Google once again saying if you can’t join em, beat them over the head and bloody their nose.
ATT, you should have played nice…..
Google Voice now allows SMSs to be sent to multiple users. Been waiting for that for a while!
Is there a screenshot somewhere? I still see the old version of the mobile voice site.
Maybe this works in the US, but here in the UK, I get a page that says it’s invitation only, and suggests I leave my email address so that they can invite me at some undisclosed date in the future. Which is kinda stupid, because I just used my Google account to log in!!
Hack your phone. GV is available through Cydia.
Folks … this isn’t new. Since the whole debacle started months ago, I added the GV URL to my home page and have been using it successfully since.
It’s up. It’s running. And it’s fantastic!
I left a Google Voice message about this and this is the transcribed text I got:
“Great, Bob, hi I got my doodle paws on hi. Phone now ha boy message. Doodle paws rocks!”
I love web applications. A lot. I use them more than Windows-based applications. However, I’ll take a native iPhone application any day over a web-based one.
Finally. The interface has been in desperate need of a makeover, that’s for sure. Of course, it’s nowhere near the goodness that an app would have been.
Actually you can do most of this already one of two ways. First, by using Safari to go to http://www.google.com/voice (bookmark it for convenience) where you can view the transcripts, send SMS messages for free, etc.
Second, the Google Voice application (GV) is accessible for jailbroken iPhones from Cydia. Just install the free app to a jailbroken iPhone.
That said, I’d rather wait for the Google-supported solution later today rather than install an application of questionable pedigree and provide it access to all my voicemail.
Very cool but if you jailbreak and you can install the real GV app. Jailbreaking is worth it for Google Voice alone.
Finally!
Still haven’t seen the changes on my phone, but I’ll be checking all day!
Seriously, I want this freaking app already!!!!!
From the UK
The new version loads but doesn’t recognize my associated phone number.
Something else I just noticed, when you manage your numbers via the desktop version it now lists instructions on how to route incoming calls to your AT&T number to your google voice mail.
looks nice, still preffer to JB and use GV Mobile… I wish google would enable “app mode” like they do with Wave
If you like me sync iPhone’s address book with Google then you wouldn’t really need to access the iPhone contacts.
I’d like it if it could have it call your number like the normal web interface can instead of having your phone call Google.
Nice!
Tip: You can add contacts to your home screen. Give it a try!
So much for Voice Central Black Swan
You can spin the proprietary, closed ecosystem, user friendly, qualitative angle all you want, but at the end of the day…
Open > Closed
Looks very good. Can I port my number yet?
Nice, although this still isn’t available outside the US…
So it dials a “google access” number to connect (showing your GV # on the recipient caller ID). I assume that these access numbers will count against my minute allowance, correct? Vs. adding my GV # to my AT&T A-list and making all calls by dialing that first?
“The application ends up making a local call through your cell phone to Google Voice, which then routes your call through its own lines.”
that is not how google voice works. it’s based on a call back system.