Suddenly Apple’s competitors see a weakness in the iPhone, and it’s Google Voice. We’ve heard from a source close to Palm that the company plans to roll out deep integration with Google Voice on the Pre phones for users who want it. That could convert a lot of iPhone users to the Palm Pre fast. But there’s just one problem: at this point, Google isn’t building an app for the Pre.
Google Voice gives users a lot of freedom with their phone – they can ring several mobile and landline phones at once through one number, manage text messages, auto-transcribe voicemails and also block/manage callers depending on who they are and when they are calling. Want to switch phones or carriers? If you use Google voice, you don’t have to port your phone number or tell everyone what your new phone number is.
Which is exactly why Apple fears it.
What really makes Google Voice useful is when it integrates deeply with native apps like the dialer and contacts. That way all outbound calls use the Google Voice phone number (and caller ID) instead of the phone number associated with the phone. When it works perfectly, as it does with Android phones, the underlying device phone number is more like an IP address for a website – it’s there but no one uses it. Your Google Voice phone number is more like the domain name, which everyone remembers and associates with you.
We’re hearing that Palm wants that deep integration to lure iPhone users to the Pre, and our source said it would roll out an official app some time in the next month or so. But from what we hear from sources close to Google, no one there is actually working on a Google Voice app for the Pre. They have apps for Android and Blackberry (and iPhone in purgatory), but that’s it.
Officially Google is saying “Google is interested in bringing the mobile experience of its products to many platforms, including Palm, as we have for the Palm Pre with Google Search, Google Maps, and YouTube built in, as well as easy sync to Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Contacts. We look forward to providing a mobile experience for more Google products to Palm Pre users.”
But our understanding from other sources is that Google only intends to roll out a browser based version of the service for Pre, which lacks the deep integration with native apps like the dialer and contacts. The user experience isn’t nearly as good.
There are already third party Google Voice apps for the Pre, such as this one, but again, those apps can’t integrate deeply with the phone. That’s because Google Voice has no API right now, so Google has to build deep integration apps directly.
So what we’re left with is this – Palm really wants Google Voice for the Pre, but it isn’t at all clear that they’re going to get it any time soon.
Hmm, kinda strange really. I wonder if Google wants people to convert from iPhone to Android, instead of iPhone to Pre, and this is why they aren’t gung-ho on making a Pre app?
Google doesn’t care if people use android, as long as they use google services. Google wants to be a service provider, not a product maker.
The more mobile platforms have deep integration with google services, the better.
Google is interested in bringing the mobile experience of its products to many platforms, including Palm.
>>>>> That is true. Google is a massive service provider and does not stick to particular products. In my observation, Google establishes its service in all fields irrespective of brands. I am sure Google will soon develop a Pre App.
The GDialPro homebrew app on the Pre is illmatic. I don’t need anything official as long as I have a huge developer community building apps.
yeah, but without the API it doesn’t work perfectly. For example, if you call out to someone, it calls you, then calls them and connects you. And it can’t take over the call log and dialer properly.
Yeah this is main reason I won’t switch to Google Voice on the iPhone w/ GV Mobile. The calling is just awkward.
Mike, are you saying that it’s *fully* integrated on android phones? No annoying call routing and separate call/text logs?
The official GoogleVoice app on android handset’s is *fully* integrated. Log’s, contacts, and dialer.
from personal exerience
Really? As an android user, I wish I could use the app. No invite. To me, Google’s “invite” system is as bad as Apple’s app policy, since in both cases it means no GV.
On android this is how it works.
When you make an outbound call, you can either have it be set that it will automatically use your google voice number or prompt you via a dialog to choose. In either case, the receiving end-user will see that you have dialed out with your google voice number when in reality you are just dialing with your regular cell phone.
When you get an incoming call to google voice, it will instantly direct you to your cell phone number (if you remove the stupid prompts) and it will work as usual.
Basically with the native app, the end user will never know that you are calling out of a 3rd party number. The integration is very seamless.
yes that correct I used to have a G1 and when i sent message to a contact it gave me an option to select the phone system or the google voice app system without living the messaging app, and it was kind of cool
OK, so I understand on Android you get what we all want as far as outgoing caller ID and call logs, but what about text messages? Can you essentially give up your text message plan on T-Mobile and use unlimited GV text messages for free? And it appears to your friends just as a T-Mobile text message would?
If so, then THAT is an even bigger killer app. Imagine the amount of people that would move to Android+GV if you tell them they can get FREE UNLIMITED text messages forever!
Yes, you can send SMS. It doesn’t use the same SMS app, it uses the GV app. But they are essentially the same.
You are overstating the potential of the native app. Sure, it replaces on the phone functions on Google’s own Android platform, but the closer analogy would be the implementation on the Blackberry, which does not integrate as seamlessly.
The blackberry version does not have google voice calls show up properly in the call log, and calls made from the “missed call” log will show up with your underlying phone number, not your google voice number.
This is just a limitation of other platforms. In Android, due to the framework’s ability to allow 3rd party apps to take over native apps, you get this incredibly seamless experience.
Exactly- I’m replying to Michael’s post on what would be expected out of a Google official app on the Palm. I imagine it would be limited by similar platform issues as the Blackberry.
Yeah that sounds really, really awesome. Makes GV actually useful then!
For what it’s worth, Michael, we at Palm Infocenter got some thoughts from thoughts from the webOS developers at Pivotal Labs on this issue:
http://www.palm...p-in-the-works/
The interesting takeaway is that it is feasible to reverse-engineer the web API, with or without Google publishing it.
Michael, this does not require *Google* to expose new APIs—the many third party apps for every platform (including the now-rejected apps for iPhone) all use the same interfaces to the Google service as Google’s own Android app. They had to reverse-engineer it, and it could technically change, but this has nothing to do with the level of integration unique to Android. Rather, it requires *Palm* (or Apple) to expose richer APIs to their platforms to take over the native dialing, SMS, and call/text notification mechanisms. Both Palm and Apple do not expose sufficiently deep hooks for sandboxed apps on their platforms to enable third parties to do this, but either could do it, themselves, by building the feature outside of the app store sandboxes.
Palm better do something to get the ball rolling on this one.
So Google is no different than Apple. The Google Voice is a tool to promote Android. Actually, if Google blocks the Palm WebOS that way, than Apple should do the same on the iPhone.
Eventually we will miss Microsoft (a joke, a joke. no way).
i think this is more about allocating resources to platforms with the most users.
If that was the case, don’t you think Google should tell Palm do the heavy lifting and build their own app using the GV api?
Just saw your reply about no GV API. So short-sighted of Google.
Not true. Google did create a Blackberry app.
nobody is saying google is blocking gv from the pre, its just a matter of priority, they have a lot on their plate right now, u just couldnt resist hating on google could ya?
A lot on their plate??! I) It’s strategic – needles Apple into getting on board ii) it helps us all by helping create more competition in a tiny market of choices.
Apple’s shine as the “good guy underdogs” has rightfully dulled finally. I can only hope Google is next. How the hell a company that doesn’t even pretend to hide that it’s entire business plan is built around being an effective “big brother” is so loved in general by the tech community is beyond me. Their prospectus said ” do no evil” precisely because of the ability they have to do more evil than any other tech giant.
Perhaps, after building apps for Android, Blackberry & iPhone, they are considering developing & releasing an API, to make life easier. Even after the Pre, they will still have to build apps for Symbian & WinMo.
they aren’t blocking it, they are just not building an app theirselves. they also don’t make a google voice app for my old lg viewty, but that doesn’t mean they’re blocking it.
That’s fine. If Google doesn’t build it, someone will (homebrew apps are already out there). When those rise in popularity, that will make Google think twice.
You’d think considering the openness of the Pre by using web standards that Google might be a bit more supportive.
unless/until GV has an API, these third party apps will be limited. see my comment above.
Michael, it’s not that limited. It’s the same as all GV apps, with the official android app being the only “non-limited” GV app in existence. And having used both, I’m not sure the official app is much better than GV (the popular 3rd party voice app for android).
For me, not having a Google Voice dialer is a big missing feature. I have to choose between either always using my GV number or be prompted on each call to choose (major annoyance). Right now I have it set to always use Voice for international calls. I switch between Google Voice and GV because I can directly call from Voice using GV.
Anyways, the existent Pre apps are great. And I think you are really really overstating the important of this “deep integration”.
Well, the unofficial apps are great if you don’t want to drunk-call your ex, but other than that, they are pretty useless. Full integration ASAP, please.
can u imagine that in the next six months google releases gv to the public and it gets popular pretty fast, and the only smartphone without gv is the iphone, that would be pretty bad for apple and big turnoff for a lot of users
It isn’t immediately apparent just how much longer phone numbers are necessary, whether users adopt an all-encompassing Google number or not. The actual protocol used to discover/access a given device should actually be black-box functionality, like your IP, MAC address, or serial number, meaning that in the long run we’ll be calling each other through unique usernames (a la Skype) registered to the phone, Mac, television, or any other device capable of basic telephony. Then the much-touted “number-routing” technology touted by Google becomes a trivial implementation of something like Facebook’s friend lists. The only truly noteworthy technology of Google Voice is voicemail transcription. The rest is an attempt to buttress the dying and increasingly irrelevant phone number. There’s no way Google Voice, as a number router, will be relevant in five years.
Just to kind of sum up, in case the point was lost: Google Voice doesn’t really put Google in a forward-looking direction with telephony. It’s essentially a very sophisticated retro-fit to an outdated protocol of communication. Any service that offers a username (Facebook, MobileMe) is in as good a position, if not a superior one, as Google is with Google Voice to create a unifying telephony protocol, which is why it’s a bit overreaching to call the phone market in Google’s favor just because they’re doing Voice.
If even the tech-savvy internet hasn’t gone from ipv4 to ipv6 in the last five years, the odds that telephony will abandon its entire routing infrastructure is asymptotic to zero. Especially when the benefits of doing so are almost non-existent.
What you are suggesting is an answer in search of a problem.
I’m not suggesting that telephony will abandon its routing infrastructure. I’m saying that however we connect with people in a phone will be hidden in a “black box,” just like your IP is when you chat. Imagine that you store your phone number in Facebook. All somebody has to do is press “Call Samuel” on a phone or desktop app, and Facebook, or whatever the service is, will return the actual phone number and place the call. But that number itself is becoming a trivial detail in making a phone call. I’m saying that in five years, services that hide the minutiae of the “phone number” as we know it will crop up left and right, and there’s no reason to think that Google has anything special because they hide several phone numbers with ::gasp:: another phone number. That’s a lateral step, not a forward one.
The “phone number” is already hidden. I don’t know any of my friends phone numbers. I don’t need to know them, my phone does.
I think your two statements are contradictory. In the first you seem to be suggesting that telephony is going to go away, but Stefan suggested, it doesn’t need to. I almost thought you were going to go down the road of suggesting that we are all going to move to Skype like calling, but that’s a terrible idea until there’s a VOIP protocol that gives us ownership over a VOIP “number” so that’s we’re not put into vendor lock-in situations like we currently are with Mobile Phone providers.
Matthew,
Exactly, which is why in principle nobody should really give a damn that you have a shiny new Google Voice phone number, because it’s just another number to hide in a contacts file, i.e. “black box”. Say your phone synced with Facebook. As soon as your friend got a new phone number, your friend would update that number on his or her profile, and clicking that name would have you call that new number. I mean, updating Facebook with a new number would in theory be as much or little trouble as updating it on Google Voice, right? As I said before, the only inherent advantage of Google Voice is voicemail transcription.
This automated number retrieval, I’ll reiterate, is functionality that is already possible in a number of mobile services and should in no way be seen as a distinct advantage on Google’s part. To suggest that Apple is afraid of it is ludicrous.
Just tossing this out there as a possibility but could Palm be developing the app themselves with permission from Google? It would see damn right idiotic to claim an app will be out within a month with deep integration in the PalmOS while knowing Google isn’t even trying to create one.
By letting Palm develop the app it frees them of having to devote resources to it.
there’s no GV API, so the app would have limited functionality.
Doh! Fail on Google then.
I don’t think it is realistic to say Apple is “afraid” of Google Voice, but it is quite true that the way the app works falls way outside their plan for the iPhone, but I have a feeling that we will see GV on the iPhone down the road.
Wow. Google better make a real app for the pre. I have a google voice account and a palm pre. Google is being evil by not making a real app for the pre.
What I don’t understand about Google Voice is if I use the app will it invalidate my M2M minutes? My understanding is the app dials directly to Google Voice then the service dials out. If that is the case, then it wouldn’t be considered a phone call to someone on the carrier, therefor invalid for M2M mins. Seems like a way to rack up higher bills to me.
I like high bills, personally.
So does everyone who cried when it was removed from the iPhone app store apparently.
T-mobile and Verizon have plans (favorites) if I’m not wrong, that will let you to select up to 5-10 numbers that will be free to call, so this means that you can add you GV number to that list and ALL of your calls will be free.
Something tells me that they would block the GV number from the favs plan.
They wouldn’t be able to tell. Unless Google published all of the numbers it owns to Carriers and Phone Companies – which may be a breach of Privacy Statement.
That’s correct – BUT some carriers offer free calls home. I believe Sprint does for $5 a month. You could get that and put your GV number as your “home” number – then all calls are free, period.
Yeah, this is a M2M-minute killer. However, Google could add VoIP to Voice, eliminating the need for cellular minutes at all, which I hope they do. Hey, someone’s gotta buy Skype, right?
Until then, switch to Sprint, $100/month gets you a Palm Pre with unlimited minutes. Tough to beat that, and you never have to worry about minutes again.
Forget Skype, check out Gizmo5, if you combine it with GV you basically can make and receive free domestic calls through your computer. There’s a bunch of tutorials around on the web on how to do this. Now if Gizmo5 made an app for the Pre then you could totally forget about worrying about your minutes because it would be sent as data over the data plan.
Personally I hope the whole M2M thing dies. That’s a racket that deserves some FCC attention.
Has anyone considered that Apple may be doing the same, which would make their own comments and the rejection consistent?
Apple could be developing an integrated GV app with the help of Google, allow Google to have a full-featured (possibly more featured app) on the App Store, and allow 3rd party apps — you know, exactly the case with every other Google app.
The only problem Apple ran into was the Google app was too good, too soon for Apple’s own timeline.
Don’t have any specific knowledge nor am I trying to defend Apple, but to me, this seems just as likely as anything else.
Let me get this straight… Apple rejected an OFFICIAL app, so that they could make an UNOFFICIAL app themselves, to a service that they don’t have access to an API… wtf?
There is something of an unofficial API here
http://posttopi...-on-development
More like some guy rambling.
Another Great post. The title is a killer
. I think google come out with their own handset since they have the OS already may be they are testing the waters with google voice.
Why does Apple care if you use a Google number or an AT&T number? Seems to me they’d be indifferent, as long as you use it on an iPhone that you bought from them.
We will likely see native GV on the iPhone when the AT&T contract runs out; not by coincidence I’m sure. I wonder how the VZ iPhone contract will play out with GV. Anyone?
The more statements that Apple makes it seems like it’s less of an AT&T issue and more of an Apple issue.
To me it seems like Apple was just annoyed with Google and didn’t want their app wedging itself into the core Apple functions. I’m not sure it was entirely a business decision.
I can see their point. They develop all these great features which other companies, including google, later copy. And now their direct competitor makes an application and tries to put it on the iphone. I can see how Apple, and in particular Jobs, wouldn’t appreciate being “edited”.
I am the developer of the gDial Pro app and I appreciate the mention of it.
I am not sure Palm is 100% on board though with Google Voice as I have had no contact with them in regards to the app. It has been submitted to the App Catalog, but as of now I have no response yay or nay. They are probably just busy with all the submissions, but I wanted to put it out there that there has been no official Palm “blessing” of the app or GV in general.
WANT.
I have google voice on the G1.
I wouldn’t say that the experience is perfect. You still get occasional delays and fails before the call connects through GV. It can be a bit annoying if you have to make an urgent call.
The transcription isn’t particularly good yet. I have yet to get a script in the 80-90% correct range. Typically more like 50-60%.
I get 2 text messages every time someone sends one to my google voice number.
And with the new visual voicemail from tmobile there’s a little less incentive to switch.
That being said I think it’s still a great little service that is particularly useful for individuals with multiple lines, international contacts, a need to track SMS / voicemails, or a high volume of unknown callers.
I got my first transcription today and I didn’t notice a single word incorrectly transcribed. Anecdotal, sure…
Free unlimited SMS through GV would save AT&T users $15/mo. Who wouldn’t want GV just for that one thing?
The problem is with Palm’s webOS/Mojo SDK.
Anyone with the free SDK and USB cable can get into the phone as root user.
And all the apps’ source codes are fully exposed (HTML/JS/CSS). This way, Google Voice’s un-documented/hidden/private API will be exposed to the public. This is definitely a big NO to Google!
Not that I am advocating Palm or its webOS/Mojo SDK, but anyone who Jailbreaks an iPhone will have root access and the APIs will have the same exposure. Albeit a smaller % of folks who will Jailbreak vs non Jailbroken phone, the exposure once out, is out.
iPhone apps (both Apple apps and SDK apps) are compiled, so all you’d get is a binary. You could disassemble it, but it’s a lot more work than seeing actual code as with Mojo.
You clearly do not know the difference between compiled and interpreted programming languages…
Mike,
Can you get me an invite to Google Voice? Man, I have been waiting forever.
Me too. My Android phone is all primed and ready for GV, but no invite from Google.
I think you may have said the magic words, dunno if you’ve been counting but G <3 API http://code.google.com/apis/
How many times is Techcrunch gonna keep on promoting Google Voice?
Its getting too boring!
I am cool.
Resource allocation problem. All Google apps on the Pre feel unfinished.
Google has to support too many mobile platforms nowadays and those contribute to revenues only indirectly since they don’t display ads.
It’s concerning to me, a Palm Pre owner and a Google Voice number holder, that Google may not want to do a native app – or release an API (at least to the high profile webOS labs like Pivotol).
Maybe I have a thing for the serious underdogs. But, Palm is – let’s face it – a serious Underdog. Though, I don’t know if I want to kick Nokia USA into that as well but you know, whatever. But, I think Palm is doing all it can to gain back some market share.
It’s doing a pretty good thing by integrating with existing technologies – like Google – to give the User Experience the best thing possible. It’s really disconcerting, if this is true, that some of the larger companies are possibly stonewalling Palm.
Then again, as the Pivotol Labs guys say. They may be able to cobble together an API from reverse engineering. And we know how Palm likes to kick other guys in the shin and run away.
LOL at Arrington being this out of touch.
90% of iPhone users don’t even know what google voice is.
90% of those who do think its kinda cool but won’t be bothered to use it.
90% of those who want to use it still wouldn’t switch off of iPhone to get deep integration.
If google voice deep integration is such a big deal on your cell then why aren’t you screaming to get the same integration on your landline? Google voice would have been a great product 10 years ago when people had multiple phone lines – now most people just use their cell all the time. That’s their one number. Yeah the call routing and scheduling would be cool but not cool enough to move people.
Well, the reason they might be focusing on the web app overall instead of any other native app for other phones is that the web app should work no matter which phone you use. You’ll just use it like Goog’s calender/documents. That way everyone can use it.
Hopefully, the native apps will make its way out so the users will have a better experience than a “work around” like web app.
Michael,
Do you think is there an opportunity for some companies to do clone google voice? My company can roll out an extremly scalable model for Google Voice type clone in less than 1 month! with the technology we have, but I am not sure of opportunity.
Thanks