Anyone know any info about it.. I heard its like free phone service to your cell phone or something and that it was just announced a couple of days ago.
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=140041 Google bought grandcentral awhile back. The concept has been around for quite awhile now. Not sure about what all Google Voice entails, but with GC, you can pick a phone number and give that out. It then forwards the calls to whatever other numbers you have (cell, home, business, ect) with all kinds of neat little features.
Here is one of the more bland articles I read at work earlier today. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/ There is a LOT of hype about this. We'll see if it's a true game-changer. From my standpoint, if it puts a scare into the dominant telcos, shakes things up and leads to more innovation to benefits consumers, good. It might take a company like Google or Microsoft to get the telcos off their behinds.
I got my invite today. Just installed the app on my BlackBerry. And set up a phone personalized phone number for all my phones. So far, one of the coolest features is the voice mail turned to text. I hate getting messages that are long and have a lot of info that's hard to make out. (important voice mails). I remember the grand central thing it was before. Although I was never able to get in, not sure what happened to my invite back then.
Is the purpose of the app so you can get easy access to your voicemails? Because other than that, you can already receive your Google Voice/Grand Central calls on whatever phone you point it at.
You can also make calls with the app. And yes, it gives you access to your voicemails and reads them out to you. I'm going to use this service to use that number when I don't want to give out my real number to businesses etc.
But you're installing the app on your phone... which can already make calls. Unless you mean it uses your data plan to make calls?
It uses your new number. So, I can call someone with my new 713 number designated by Google. That will show up on their caller ID. Not my cell phone number. You're still using your minutes from what I understand. It just uses a different number. You have access to all the stuff online like on your google inbox. You can make calls from there too, which in turn google calls your phone and when you pick up it automatically connects you to a number.
Oh ya, I forgot to add. You have FREE SMS with google voice. I recently dropped my SMS part of my plan, and have been using blackberry messenger. With GOOGLE VOICE you can send FREE sms if you have a data plan, although apparently you get charged for replies. SMS messages will be sent through your data plan, as opposed to your SMS plan, so there won't be any SMS charges. Replies will come to your mobile phone directly if you have it listed as one of your fowarding phones. Depending on your carrier, you may be charged for your received SMS messages.
I got an invite, but there aren't any Austin numbers left for 512. Does anyone know how often they'll add more numbers?
I got a couple numbers way back when it was Grand Central. It didn't really differ that much from traditional VoIP in functionality except for the web interface and maybe the call screening. I've used it without problems for probably two years. When google bought them out, they added the voice mail transcribing and the ability to text to the number, and that really added a lot to the service, at least for me.
This is a great service. I requested an invite last week and just the other day got it. It's perfect since I'm moving out of state and this saves the hassle of having to get a new phone number. I did have a Grand Central account, but rarely used it. The ability to call out from the Google Voice designated number (via the app) makes this incredibly helpful. Sure, having to go through the app is another step, but they've managed to make it very easy (from what I understand). I didn't even realize about the SMS, which is another bonus. I would ponder if there would eventually be an iPhone app, but since it's targeting business users, the BlackBerry app makes sense. I don't have a iPhone or BlackBerry yet, but was already planning on getting a Curve or Bold. I suppose I could also look into which phones use Android as well. In the meantime (for the iPhone users), you can still use the Skype app.
hehe... I've had Grandcentral for a while... and then I switched it over to Google Voice about 2-3 months ago in that transition.. though for me.. it's really useless, I don't even use it.
I was looking around and, maybe I don't see it, but I don't see an option to invite others. What I did was just request an invite from the site directly and about a week later they sent me one. And to clarify a point I made earlier about there being an app for Android and BlackBerry...I was browsing through the iPhone App store and came across a Google Voice app. It's not made by Google, but does essentially the same things that the BlackBerry app does.
GV Mobile. Google says they should be releasing their iPhone app fairly soon. It's still pretty early, but Google Voice definitely has some great features that are very useful. Having to give out only one number is very convenient, and allows you to keep your real phone number private when you have to list your number down on applications, or putting up an ad on Craigslist for example. I can route certain contact groups to certain numbers, and I can even have specific voice mail answering machines for specific people. The voice mail will transcribe to text and the audio is saved online, and you can get an email or text message with the transcription. I don't keep up with online calling rates to international countries, however I'm sure Google does or will have some pretty competitive rates as well.
You can also use google voice to make cheap long distance calls and it will connect it to your phone. So its a way to connect voip and your phone (cell or land line).
If the Google Voice iPhone app has push notification, I may get rid of my text messaging plan all together. That would be awesome.
You can actually combine it with a free gizmo5 account to get unlimited calling, incoming and outgoing for free. More info here: http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=1471803 Ive been using it on my iphone with Fring and Siphon to make free calls for a couple days now...
