Google Voice is a cool product that gives you a centralized phone number and service. Imagine having one phone number that rings every phone you own? That’s Google Voice. In addition to that killer feature, the service lets you manage voice mail, control which of your phones ring at which time and transcribe voice mails to text. Add one more feature to the list: Google+ Circles.
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If you took home a shiny new iPhone 4S in the past few days, you might have looked for the Google Voice app in the App Store and come up empty handed. The bad news is that the app was pulled over the weekend. The good news is that it will return in the near future.
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I’ve found the ability to receive and make phone calls from inside of Gmail on my desktop to be very useful. The sound quality from my desktop speakers is far better than any handset or headset I’ve ever used. The Gmail Blog just announced that this feature is now supported in a lot more languanges and that long distance voice calls are a bit cheaper now.
Calling from Gmail now in 38 languages, with lower rates to over 150 destinations
So, what does this have to do with mobile? Although, the Google Gmail Blog article doesn’t directly say so, this calling feature is Google Voice. So, if you configure for Gmail phone calls, you can also configure Googel Voice to work with your cell phone and/or landline too. Here’s a neat trick if you assign your Google Voice number to work with your cell phone or landline and have an iPad.
The Google Voice for iPhone app works on the iPad. While the iPad cannot directly make voice calls (it is great for text messaging), you can use it as a phone number dialer for your other phones. Here’s how it works: Tap out the phone number in Google Voice on an iPad, then press Call. Google Voice will ask which phone you want to make the call on. Select the physical phone you want to use (cell or landline) and Google Voice will dial that phone and then dial the party you are calling. Google Voice then connects the two lines together to complete the call.
My game plan for this weekend was to help two family members migrate from their current Sprint voice mail service to the new Google Voice service (see news item below).
Google Voice Now Providing Voice Mail & International Carrier Service for Sprint Cell Phones
I hedged my bets in this blog item by saying upfront:
Sprint cell phone customers may be in for a treat if all goes well with the integration of Google Voice as their voice mail system.
The key phrase is if all goes well. However, according to Engadget, all did not go well.
Sprint / Google Voice integration has major issues, major lack of support
Engadget summarizes reports of all sorts of problems ranginge from activation issues to crippled accounts.
I found several sources that may help you if you already tried to turn on Google Voice integration for your Sprint account.
Google provides a troubleshooting FAQ for Sprint customers. But, it does not address serious issues like crippled accounts.
Google Voice on Sprint: Google Voice on Sprint FAQs Troubleshooting
Google also has a section for generic known issues here.
Finally, There’s a long discussion thread in the Google Voice Help Forum where you can read some of the issues related to Sprint-Google Voice integration.
Announcing Google Voice + Sprint Integration
There’s also a discussion thread in Sprint’s community area under the announcement message.
Sprint cell phone customers may be in for a treat if all goes well with the integration of Google Voice as their voice mail system.
Google Voice and Sprint integration is live (Google Voice Blog)
Sprint customers can choose to keep their current Sprint cell phone number or switch their cell phone to an existing Google Voice phone number. Note that Google Voice is not available for some U.S. area codes. If so, it is probably best to retain your current Sprint cell phone number in your local area code. Doing this also lets you ring other phones (home, office) when someone calls your Sprint phone number. You can learn more about these two options here:
Google Voice Sprint setup information
There is one aspect of this Sprint-Google integration that may not work so well, however. Google will also provide international voice call carrier service. I’ve encountered a wide variety of voice call quality when uisng Google Voice. The consistently worst voice call scenario was when when someone called my Google Voice number from a cell phone and I answered on a cell phone. I’ve answered Google Voice calls on cell phones using AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. The call quality ranged from passable to awful.
Google announced a new communication service this week – you can dial up your friends and talk to them on their phones through your computer. The service joins Gmail’s other capabilities – like instant chatting, videochatting and of course e-mailing – and is probably not a function that mobile providers are rejoicing over. While many are calling the Gmail phone a competitor to Skype, mobile providers across the board may have cause for jealousy. Here are the big reasons why Gmail’s snazzy new dialing power might alarm mobile providers. Read more
One of the best new Google releases over the last few years has been Google Voice. The service provides you with a phone number and the ability to route one number to all your phones, or voice mail that routes to your Google account to make sure you can access it. The service is now available to all customers across the United States, no matter what carrier you want.
This past week, Google Maps has seen a number of changes, especially to the mobile version, with voice search being amongst the most important. First, turn by turn navigation for Android devices was made available for the UK and Ireland. Now a “Search by Voice” feature for Google Maps 4.1 for Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 phones is out. That’s in addition to Google adding a Buzz layer to Maps, as well as revamping their Google Local Business Center as Places, the latter of which could have a positive impact on mobile LBS (Location-Based Services) applications.
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For years, voice transcription technology has been available but terrible. Unless you talked like a robot, the typed result looked nothing like what you said. Now there’s a new round of services for those who are better at talking with your mouth rather than your thumbs, and they’ve gotten a lot better. Here are our six faves.
This new transcription app has been slobberingly adored by Mashable, The New York Times, and the rest of the web. It’s free for a limited time only, and does a mighty fine job. Once you’ve spoken, you can save the text in an email, SMS or onto your clipboard. The basic design is very user-friendly, and the price is right.
This one costs $0.99 and doesn’t let you email your notes out of your iPhone, but it does have a handy “pause” feature that allows you to take a little break without having to start a new file.
This is a useful app for the Blackberry, but don’t let the $1.99 download price fool you. They have a slate of complicated and expensive plans for emailing the transcriptions out of your device that should make you wary.
