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Google Voice Get More Flexible For iPhone Users

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on October 27

Rob Hof has a post next door on Tech Beat regarding today’s news that Google Voice is allowing people to sign up for the service using their existing mobile numbers.

The classic complaint about Google Voice is that you have to start with a new number, and then pass that number around to everyone who’s likely to call you in order for it to be effective. That presents a mild annoyance. If someone is accustomed to calling your cell phone number all the time, they just keep calling it and when they leave messages, they go not to Google Voice, where they get transcribed and forwarded to your email address and stored indefinitely. Rather these messages go to your wireless carrier’s voice mail system where they’re stored for a limited time, hard to get at, impossible to forward or share, and never transcribed.

As part of the rollout of the new features I noticed something very interesting on my Google Voice account. I noticed that the two mobile phones attached to my Google Voice account, one a Blackberry on Verizon, the other an iPhone on AT&T, had a new setting: “Activate Google voicemail for this phone.” I clicked it and was given instructions on phone number to dial that began with *71. Essentially what I think it does is tell your wireless carrier to forward an unanswered call to Google Voice, essentially bypassing the carrier’s voice mail system.

That means people call and leave messages on my mobile number will get transferred to Google Voice. And because those messages go straight to my email address, I’m more likely to respond to them quickly, or to return the call, and I can effectively forget about the passcode to get into my mobile voice mail account.

And if you’re an iPhone user and a Google Voice customer, you can more closely integrate the two products into a more seamless experience, whether or not Apple ever gets around to approving the Google Voice application for the iPhone.

What’s still missing from Google Voice is number portability for land lines. I would really like to transfer my home telephone number to Google Voice, and stop paying the exorbitant fees to Verizon for a phone I rarely use. I’d get rid of it entirely except for the fact that its in the 212 area code, for New Yorkers, losing a 212 number is, as I once wrote, like giving away a pet. Services like RingCentral, which I reviewed in the magazine over the summer, and Vonage allow number portability. Why not Google Voice?

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Reader Comments

voip over WiMax

October 27, 2009 02:00 PM

Can Google put the Google Voice service over WiMax and have android mobile device support it, So that we can get VOIP calls on the move? How far is this technology from becoming a reality?

Reason Why

October 27, 2009 02:23 PM

Google Voice is not a Telecommunications company and cannot port your number. However, when you get your invite to Google Voice, you are allowed to choose a number. Did you try choosing a 212 number? I was able to choose a local number for my family to call from their landlines without using long distance.

Arik Hesseldahl

October 27, 2009 02:53 PM

@Reasonwhy

212 numbers are really scarce. The best you can get in New York City is 646 or 347, neither of which is as cool as 212.

Margho Sting

October 27, 2009 04:12 PM

I am amazed by the amount of services that Google gets itself into. Either it will make them the strongest company around or brake their back eventually.

Time will show what comes first.

____________________
Margo, Chicago
Web Hosting Reviews Writer

Jake USA

October 27, 2009 05:10 PM

Do you really feel comfortable allowing Google to record & transcribe all of your phone calls?

Ray USA

October 27, 2009 07:38 PM

Thank you so much for the post. If I had not read your post, I wouldn't have known to go into the setting to do that.

Having said that, I really wish there's a 3rd party GV app that would allow seamless integration with iphone. I have the Tmobile MyTouch3G and through that, the GV is perfect!

The GV app from the iphone App store doesn't even have GV as part of the link. So, I had to create a shortcut from the web base to the homepage. But everytime I get a SMS, I won't know until it emails me or I go in to check, which is a pain in the butt!

I love both the iphone and the android base phones, but if both can merge into one, then that's perfect harmony.. but i'm sure that's just a dream.

GoogleBFF

October 28, 2009 01:06 PM

Jake. Do you really think Google will care about you getting calls from your friends and how excited the were that a girl talked to them. Even though she had to in order to take their order.

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A blog on the daily doings of Apple and the many companies in its orbit, with insight and analysis by two longtime Apple-watchers BusinessWeek Senior Writer Peter Burrows and BusinessWeek.com Senior Technology Writer Arik Hesseldahl.

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