Aug 02 2009 2:00 am
Apple, AT&T, Google… Who’s killing Google Voice and why?
This isn’t a lead in to an eventual answer, it’s a question. Who in the hell is causing all the fuss about Google Voice and iTunes? And more importantly… Why??
Does Google Voice (henceforth known as GV) offer something unique that no other App in the App Store does? To answer that, I guess we’ll have to cover first what the application does offer:
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One number for all your calls and SMS
Call screening – Announce and screen callers
Listen in – Listen before taking a call
Block calls – Keep unwanted callers at bay
SMS – Send, receive, and store SMS
Place calls - Call US numbers for free
Taking calls – Answer on any of your phones
Phone routing – Phones ring based on who calls
Forwarding phones - Add phones and decide which ring
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Voicemail as easy as email, with transcripts
Voicemail transcripts – Read what your voicemail says
Listen to voicemail – Check online or from your phone
Notifications – Receive voicemails via email or SMS
Personal Greeting – Vary greetings by caller
Share voicemail – Forward or download voicemails -
Other cool things
Conference calling - Join people into a single
Call record – Record calls and store them online
Call switch - Switch phones during a call
Mobile site - View your inbox from your mobile
GOOG-411 - Check directory assistance
Manage groups - Set preference by groups
Wow… That’s quite a list. So the short answer to my question is: Yes! Yes, GV does offer services that are unique and are not offered by anyone else in the App Store. Hell, AT&T doesn’t offer half of those! Out of the first grouping, AT&T can offer one thing that GV offers: SMS. The difference between the two offerings is GV does it for free, using AT&T’s bandwidth (which we customers pay for incidentally). So is that the problem? Is GV stepping on AT&T’s toes by offering something for free, which really should be free by the way, that they charge ridiculous amounts for? Maybe, but that doesn’t stop Apple from allowing Textfree Unlimited by Pinger, Inc to be sold through the App Store. Interesting isn’t it?
How about the second group… Anything there unique to GV? Yes and no. There’s plenty there that that GV does that AT&T doesn’t: voicemail transcription, receiving those transcriptions via email or SMS, personalizing your greetings based on who calls. But the rest we can reasonably say is offered by AT&T as well.
And the third group… You can’t record phone calls with an iPhone that I’m aware of. You can’t switch from your mobile phone to your house phone in the middle of a call. You can sort of view your history online with AT&T, but not your SMS. You can call GOOG-411 from your iPhone. And there are no group preferences to my knowledge.
So what does all of this mean? Does this threaten AT&T in some way? I don’t see why it should. It’s not like the features they fall short on are offered by other cellular service providers, nor do we (at least not me) expect them to. And is it even AT&T that has pressured Apple to yank GV applications from the App Store? I don’t think it is, because you can still use an official GV app on Blackberry devices on AT&T’s network. Is it Google themselves pressuring Apple to deny applications from the App Store that makes use of their GV service, including their own that they submitted? Wat?! No, they can’t be that bored. Or is it Apple themselves that for some reason just have a hard-on for GV and through their own extremely vague approval process and set of restrictions are laying the block down on GV? Hmmm… Could be. But why?!
Luckily (and some say thankfully) for the developers at least, the FCC is stepping in and has sent each of the three letters demanding explanations. Hopefully when all is said and done, we’ll see the return of GV to the iPhone. Right now the only way to get it is by jailbreaking the iPhone and installing the apps through an application like Cydia. That’s where Sean Kovacs took his app GV Mobile when Apple pulled it from the App Store. I’m a huge fan of that application and bought it probably three days before it was pulled. I won’t refund on it, because that hurts Sean. Apple, in all of their entrepreneurial wisdom gives iPhone developers 70% of their sale price for each item sold, but takes 100% from them for each refund. WTF? So no, I’ll not be asking for my money back and kicking him in the groin for a second time.
Stay tuned… We’re in for a bumpy ride.
Hi Steve,
Hopefully this is an acceptable way to contact you about a related issue. I have a question for you about your instructions to switch two GV numbers here:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/voice/thread?tid=273aba3e5dc562ae&hl=en
There are a few other people there who also posted for some clarification.
Step # 1 = Transfer number from primary account to non-GV email.
How do you go about doing this?
Also, you mention a form, but it’s not mentioned in any of the 3 steps.
Thanks
Sorry about that Mike, and thanks for reaching out. I went back and updated the thread with a link to the form and elaborated a bit more on how to use it in each of the three steps.
The short version answer to your question is: You use the form I neglected to link to in Step #1 (and subsequent two steps) to transfer your number.
I’ll provide the link here as well:
Request to allow re-upgrade to Google Voice
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cjlWRDFTWERkZEIxUzVjSmNsN0ExU1E6MA
Steve, thanks for the quick response. I want to make sure I do this correctly, based on your directions.
Here is my situation and what I’ve done so far…
GOOGLE ACCOUNT # 1 AND GV NUMBER # 1
- I have a GV number that I’ve had since the GrandCentral days (signed up, but never used it or gave the number out)
- I signed up for gmail recently, and connected my GV number to that account (still haven’t given it out really)
- I’m not happy with the phone number, so I want to get a new one.
GOOGLE ACCOUNT # 2 AND GV NUMBER # 2
- I created a new google account with my work email (the one I’m using for this post) and requested a GV invite. Got the invite, signed up and got a new number – one that I would be happy with.
rethinking things, that may have been the wrong thing to do. I’m not sure.
END GOAL – I want GV NUMBER # 2 to be associated with GOOGLE ACCOUNT # 1
Is that possible?
It doesn’t seem like I can “close” the GV NUMBER associated with my GOOGLE ACCOUNT # 1. But how can I port my GV NUMBER # 2 to GOOGLE ACCOUNT # 1 if it already has a GV NUMBER? Aaah!
Maybe I should just pay the 10 bucks? :rolleyes:
The easy solution is to pay the $10 and be done with it.
However, if you have a week (approx.) to spare and want to swap the numbers around, it will involve creating a new email account to do it. Because you can’t transfer a number to an email account that already has a GV account associated with it, you have to bring in a third email account to act as a temporary “depot” for one of the GV accounts.
I’ve created an image to try and illustrate my solution a little better. Hopefully it makes sense and doesn’t further complicate things.
Step 1 – Create a new Gmail account. (We’ll call it ‘Gmail [new]‘)
Step 2 – Move GV from ‘Gmail 1′ to ‘Gmail [new]‘. **
Step 3 – Move GV from ‘Work email 2′ to ‘Gmail 1′. **
Step 4 – Move GV from ‘Gmail [new]‘ to ‘Work email 2′.
** Important: Wait for the email notification from the Google Voice team that the transfer was completed before attempting your next GV move!
At the end of all 4 steps, you’ll have swapped your two GV numbers between the two original email accounts and have a new third Gmail account that you can simply delete. If you don’t want the second number that’s now associated with your Work email 2 account, simply don’t log into it for 9 months and it will auto-delete.
Please let me know if that makes sense or not. I hope it does.
Steve, if I can’t figure it out after that thorough explanation, i’ve got bigger issues.
One last question – when it asks “Can you describe what went wrong during the upgrading process? *” what should I say?
And is the fact that I’m doing this 3 times going to raise any flags with the big G?
That’s all – thanks for all your help!
Glad to help, Mike!
I have moved a couple of different accounts using that form and I honestly don’t think they care what you put in that description field. Both times I put something like “Chose wrong email account…” If I had to wager money on it, I’d say they’re so busy that they don’t care what you’re doing as long as you’re not violating any of the TOS rules.
It worked like a charm. Each switch took about a day to process. Thanks for the help!
No problem at all, Mike. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you need anything else.