Google goes mobile with style, putting forth a new app for Android and BlackBerry devices that lets you do things carriers hate: Transcribe voicemail in a karaoke style, make cheap international calls, and send and receive free SMS messages - all without even using your cellphone number. Is Google beating carriers at their own game?
Google’s young service dubbed Google Voice could significantly alter the mobile landscape down the road. Basically a clever telephony service that routes your calls while providing the universal voice mailbox, Google Voice gives you one phone number to rule them all, linking all your cellphones and fixed lines together. This way, your contacts call only your Google number while you decide where incoming calls route on a per contact basis or using a broader criteria based on a region, phone numbers, groups of people, and other custom rules set in the web interface.
The service links all your cellphones and landlines to one Google number.
Advanced features allow you to record calls, make free conference calls, and switch phones during a call. The universal voicemail mailbox feature turns each audio message into a piece of text. The service came to light in June as an invite-only limited beta, adding new features like the ability to change your Google Voice number. It’s still in beta (request an invite) and available only in the US, but Google promised to eventually roll it out internationally.
With a native mobile client for Android and BlackBerry devices unveiled Wednesday, Google Voice went mobile, and in a big way too. The app puts the service right where you need it - on your cellphone - allowing you to use your Google Voice number to place outgoing calls and text people. The app is intuitively integrated with a default address book and dialer programs built-in to your phone.
SMS messages sent and received through your Google Voice number are totally free and international calls are way cheaper than your carrier’s minutes. The app transcribes your voicemail in a “karaoke style,” highlighting the words being read. Here’s how Vincent Paquet and Marcus Foster of Google Voice and Mobile teams, respectively, described the app in a blog post:
Previously, to place a call using Google Voice, you had to dial your own Google Voice number from your cell phone or use the Quick Call button online. With this new mobile app, you can make calls and send SMS messages with your Google Voice number directly from your mobile phone. The app is fully integrated with each phone’s contacts, so you can call via Google Voice straight from your address book.
Google Voice on Android: Automatically transcribed voicemail messages.
You can also access a combined call history and read SMS messages sent to your Google Voice number, even if your phone doesn’t receive SMS messages. The app integrates with Android’s native dialer, unlike the BlackBerry version that comes with a separate dialer app.
Best of all, outgoing calls and SMS messages display your Google Voice number, rather than your underlying cellphone number. Previously, people retrieving your return calls would have seen your cell, home, or office number, depending on where you received incoming calls.
Google told the NYTimes that it’s “working with Apple” on an iPhone version. Wired noted that the iPhone maker and AT&T could seriously cripple the app so it doesn’t lure users away from the carrier’s pricey minutes and text messages (AT&T’s unlimited texting option costs $20 a month).
Apple’s App Store agreement with the AT&T already prohibits VoIP and video calls, giving the carrier the power to prevent apps like Skype and Slingbox from placing VoIP calls or transferring video over its cellular network, although AT&T does allow limited video streaming in some apps.
Until Google Voice app for the iPhone becomes a reality, iPhone users can either play with GV Mobile, an unofficial Google Voice app, or access the web-based Google Voice interface using the Safari browser. Android users can download the app by searching for “Google Voice” in the Android Market. BlackBerry owners are advised to visit m.google.com/voice. People who don’t own an Android or a BlackBerry device can still operate Google Voice from the mobile Google Voice site at http://www.google.com/voice.
Beating carriers at their own game
Mobile Google Voice indicates Google’s intention to enter the voice market through the backdoor. Traditionally a bastion of carriers and phone companies, the technology behind voice transfer has evolved a lot over the past decade. The biggest change came from ubiquitous IP protocols and software codecs that enabled cheap or free VoIP calls to leverage the existing Internet infrastructure. Although VoIP calls don’t share the same underlying technology as voice calls, cool services like Google Voice blur this distinction.
Carriers block programs like Skype from making cheap VoIP calls over their networks.
As a result, average consumers may no longer see phone companies and carriers as exclusive communication providers. With pervasive VoIP and video calls now the norm on desktop PCs, mobile devices, and even gaming consoles - but still not on cellular networks - carriers are finding themselves frequently bashed and accused of stalling innovation and cherry-picking services that will run on their networks.
While it’s true that things aren’t black or white, there’s some truth in these accusations. For example, most carriers block mobile Skype clients over their networks, limiting VoIP calls only to WiFi networks.
Mobile Google Voice app may not be a disruptive technology that changes everything, but it does indicate how broad Google’s reach is these days. Perhaps the fact that carriers allow Google to route cheap international calls and free SMS messages through their networks has something to do with Google’s decision to pass 30 percent of the Android Market’s revenue directly to carriers, the policy that I dubbed the carrier tax.
Regardless of deals struck behind the curtain, Google Voice enhances the user experience. The fact that Google Voice features are baked in right where you expect them, in your phone’s address book and dialer app, is especially important for average users who may go with Google Voice instead of the mobile Skype. What fascinating times we live in. It’s remarkable that such cool features excite only those of us coming from the last century because for today’s teenagers Star Trek-like communication is the norm.
Google Voice mobile app features:
- Access your voicemail: read message transcripts, follow along with “karaoke-style” playback of messages, read SMS messages sent to your Google Voice number (even if your phone doesn’t receive SMS messages) and access your call history
- Place calls: your Google Voice number from your address book is displayed to people receiving your calls
- Dialer app: integrated with Android’s built-in dialer, a separate app on Blackberry
- Send SMS messages: all sent messages display your Google Voice number
- Cheap international calls: place outgoing international calls using your Google Voice number at low rates
0 comments:
Post a Comment