Google has announced an iPhone version of Google Talk which is simply an iPhone-ized browser-formatted version of the Google’s text chat application. This means you can’t talk over the Interwebs but you can tap out halting messages to your friends on the iPhone’s screen and, thanks to Safari’s tendency to clear pages randomly, you probably won’t enjoy a sustained conversation.
When the App store finally launches expect about 500 VoIP solutions for the iPhone on the first day. Until then, sit back, think of England, and enjoy your browser-based Google Talk while it’s fresh.
I love GTalk and my iPhone so this is a winner for me!
Why England? LOL
It is exactly what I expected pre-app store.
Some of us don’t even use the voice chat of GTalk and this web app is quite useful for us without that feature.
Granted a fully featured, native app will be cool, but this is good enough for now.
I was hoping for more out of this story especially since you all didn’t break it.
@3 - Once it goes native I suspect we’ll have considerably more.
Do you really expect VoIP apps in the App Store while AT&T is paying Apple a huge subsidy for each iPhone sold?
Yeah my england, what about Finland, France, or Fiji. whats wrong with SMS?
England? Think about Germany! (don’t ask me why…).
think of Italy!
Btw, I find it perfect for a non-nerd use of it.
Apple is not going to let any VOIP apps be sold through the store, they have to approve every app that is sold there so don’t expect anything life changing
I tried out the nifty little webapp but there are some obvious draw backs.
1) Unlike the full Google Talk, it doesn’t appear to store the conversation in Gmail.
2) If your iPhone setting is to sleep rather quickly, your conversation is terminated
3) If another contact you’re chatting with responds while you’re offline and you reconnect on the iPhone webapp, that entry doesn’t come through
Other than that, realtime chat functionality is pretty good. Voice/Video eventually will be a must have. Get that camera reversed on the iPhone and push iChat and we’ve got a knock out on 3G.
“Safari’s tendency to clear pages randomly”
THIS IS INDEED an extremely annoying tendency; I sure wish Apple would fix their bugs. Why don’t they ever fix their bugs?
I’m NOT buying a 3G iPhone until this bug is fixed, and people report Safari runs faster too.
exactly why the iphone is an inferior device. you can only have one app running at a time! when you move away from the browser window google talk is in your status is unavailable. that is absolutely useless.
on my native bb8100 version of google talk, i can leave it on all day and receive gtalk messages anytime.
“Safari’s tendency to clear pages randomly” … i have not encountered this even one single time, and i use safari enough on both the desktop and the mobile… is this something that’s a little more documented elsewhere?
@ 2 & @ 7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....of_England
I never thought of just using portal numbers then using something like a modded asterix to route calls to VoIP.
http://www.icall.com/access_numbers.php#CA
Just tell people to call any of the numbers below, and when prompted, enter your iCall extension.
You could start a service like this for like 5k with a bunch of vonage numbers. It’s like 10 bucks a month per extra line. That’s really cheap.
I don’t think a lot of people will like that extra step of dialing the extension though.
Mr England, thanks, I was confused as well.
Why Apple not launching this product in Indonesia..?
With 230 Millions people, NOKIA was launched its E90 in Indonesia, first.
Google is pushing in the right direction. The already have the search on the iPhone so they just should keep up with their ‘new versions’ for products and they will enjoy the huge amount of usage iPhone owner are causing them.
and the point of this post is that techcrunch gives too much emphasis to google’s non revenue generating products…let’s create a story for them when there is no story. motive? where’s the journalism?
has anyone tried GTalk on the LG Vu, or any other device for that matter?
iPhone is an overhyped crap for dumbass Mactards and fashion lemmings.
Do your research John. The [REDACTED] clearly states that you cannot develop VOIP applications for the iPhone. What happened to investigative journalism?
Cool feature. I’m still waiting for the real time web video chat… that will be the ultimate. Until then, you can innovate with this… http://www.readtheanswer.com/index.php?RTA=web2
Our local plumbers use chat to communicate with clients when they have questions about plumbing.
I’ve been pretty dissatisfied with the results that i have been getting with the iphone. there are so many other phones out there that outperform it. it’s a cool gadget, but it really has been limited. Apple isn’t much into development cause they don’t want to get caught in the trap that microsoft is in. They don’t want a bunch of 3rd party software modifying and running things on their crap that will screw it up.
-jared b.
I like the professional iPhone 3G video Converter has new released http://www.daniusoft.com/video-to-iphone.html