Slashdot Mirror


Official Google Voice App Approved For iOS

silverpig writes "Apple has finally approved the official Google Voice app for iOS. After 16 months of being in app-review limbo, the app is finally here, but only for users in the US, and not for iPod Touch users. An interesting use for the app would be to use it as a dialing front end on an iPod touch in concert with a VOIP service, but it seems like this isn't an option for now. It seems like non-US users can get the app if they have a US iTunes account. You can create a US iTunes account without a credit card by following this Apple article."

9 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Canada? by Denis+Lemire · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google Voice sounds really cool... Sure wish they'd bring it to Canada... In time I guess...

  2. Now, if only iPod Touch support... by hezekiah957 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm wondering why they restrict it to iPhone only...

    1. Re:Now, if only iPod Touch support... by SuperMog2002 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Now that 4.0 allows you to background a VOIP app and still place and receive calls, what's stopping you from installing a VOIP client on your iPod Touch and telling Google Voice to use that number?

      --
      Sunwalker Dezco for Warchief in 2016
  3. Re:Whats worse? by Microlith · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not offering the service outside the US I can understand, it takes time and money to work through any regulatory issues covering phone service in any country.

    Apple sitting on it for 1.5 years? Less execusable. Stop me while I don't rush out to buy an iPhone.

  4. Re:I can't believe people take this kind of abuse. by ronocdh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Apple is clearly abusing its users: If you buy one of my outrageously overpriced devices, you will only be able to login as an unprivileged user, we reserve the right to login as administrators.

    Isn't this precisely what a security or network consulting firm would do? Company X pays the company $y per year to take care of all connection-related issues, and even information management. What Apple has done is bring this to the individual consumer, rather than just corporate clients. What's so bad about that?

    Just playing devil's advocate here; I'm the proud owner of a Nexus One myself, but I also work in IT.

  5. What's the big deal? by knapkin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So I have to be honest, I was just as happy with my google voice account (maybe more so, but time will tell) when I could not use it on my iphone. Now you might be asking why, and maybe my use case is not common, but google voice fills a nice roll in my life. 1) Random people at bars get google voice # 2) Companies that require a phone number get google voice # Pretty much my google voice number is like my spam e-mail account. If you got this number, well good luck getting a return call. The ability to make calls from this number is nice if I ever do return a phone call from some random girl at a bar or some company that really wants to talk to me about why I downloaded their white paper. The only other use case that I can see myself taking advantage of is the free SMS, although to be honest, it's more of a pain to let all of my contacts know who is texting them than it is to pay the $5 a month for my SMS plan.

  6. Yes, Google Voice is a VOIP service by sampas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Asterisk 1.8 has support for Google's unique protocol for voice. The result: Free calls anywhere in the US from any device or other PBX you've connected to your Asterisk box. All you need is to have compiled jabber and gtalk into your Asterisk build. Free calls in and out. FreeSwitch also supports Google Voice trunks. Google Voice is still having issues now and then, though, so it's not yet ready for prime time. I suspect that's why they're not rolling it out faster. You can connect any SIP or IAX client, wireless or not, to your Asterisk/FreeSwitch box.

  7. Re:First time for everything by icebike · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Except that Google is still providing the content, (all Apple really did was write a thin wrapper around google maps - the web version).

    Google sneaks in Traffic via croud sourcing, trails, bike routes and a lot of other content that Apple can't prevent, because all they are actually getting is images fed to them by google.

    Its pretty funny really, Apple brags they wrote maps, only to have Traffic show up on the Exact day Google releases it and Apple was none the wiser (and by some reports pisses off).

    But all the cool Google maps features added to Android are missing from from the iPhone.

    --
    Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  8. Re:The difference between Android & Iphone. by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But that's about as difficult as the process is to create a Kindle account, a Steam account, a Google Checkout account or any other online account.

    Are you saying that Kindle and Steam are both user unfriendly?

    --
    Non impediti ratione cogitationus.