neat

4. Jailbreak your iPhone and install Sean Kovac's GV Mobile, which is now available for free in Cydia.

@Michael Belisle: @Michael Belisle:

Re: #4 - zing!

I imagine a happy world where google becomes a cell phone provider with awesome service, selling only data plans for phones and allowing users to make calls through "stream-lined" google voice (to speed things up), rocking the cell phone industry and bringing the giants to their knees.

Forget Skynet.... google will be at fault for bringing about the terminators!

Google voice is pretty awesome. Even if you can't get it on your phone yet, I suggest signing up and getting a number that is easy to remember right away. I signed up early, but didn't really use Google voice until I got an android phone. Now I use it for most outgoing calls.

Color me stupid, but I still don't understand what's so exciting about GV that we need it so badly. I feel like I came into the conversation 3/4 of the way in...

Someone want to fill me in?

@Michael Belisle: That's a pretty interesting option. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if I'm really on the wrong side of the law, but I read Thoreau in High School, and I'm a fan of appropriate and non-violent civil disobedience.

My experience with jailbreaking and installing GV was that it only took 20 minutes, and was painless.

I'd love to hear the official Consumerist view on jailbreaking.

@JennQPublic: It's not the app itself. The excitement is over the obvious anti-competitive removal of it for the iphone users only.

Same reason so many were upset over the iphone Slingplayer not being allowed to use AT&T's 3g network to stream data through when they do allow other apps like Orb which do exactly the same thing and were not removed.

Pure anti-competitive evil from AT&T/Apple.

@Michael Belisle:
The terr'ists have won

@JennQPublic:

I've had it for a few years now (since it was GrandCentral), and I haven't found it to be terribly useful for me. But I could see it being useful for some people. If someone calls your GV number, it'll ring all of your phones. Or I think you can schedule it so certain phones don't get called at certain times.

Only thing I've ever used it for is when I give stuff away on Craigslist. I use my GV number so the CL people don't have my real phone number.

@JennQPublic: One major advantage it has in addition to the ones mentioned above is that it can be used to make inexpensive phone calls. If you needed to call someone who lived in Asia, and you lived in the U.S. you would be forced to pay extremely high international calling rates. With GV, you can have your GV line call you (on your cell phone or land line), and once you connect, GV will call your friend in Asia. You only pay for the local connection to your GV line (which in many cases is free).

My previous employer had a similar setup when we moved to VoIP phones. We had a desktop application on our computers that would allow calls to be seamplessly transfered to our cell phone or home phone if we were teleworking. We could also place calls to our clients to make it appear as if we were calling from the office, rather than from our home simply by telling the application that we wanted to call "Bob Smith" through our cell phone. It really changed the way that we worked because our clients would not hesitate to call you at home if they had your number.

GV can also play custom V-mail messages based on who is calling (so you can have different messages for family and business associates (it can even play a phone disconnected tone for telemarketers).

For people who need (or want) certain advanced calling features, GV is a great option, especially when you consider that such features are usually only available in more expensive phone plans.

@JennQPublic: i use it to have a local number. im on my parents plan (spoiled college student) and live in a different are code. itll be nice to be able to have a local number on my resume when i go job hunting for co-op next quarter.

@Michael Belisle:

When he spread word that it was being pulled off the App store, I bought the App simply out of solidarity.

Pretty neat that now it's available for free to the masses, as well.

That burns, doesn't it, Apple/AT&T?

@ndonahue: Not sure if it's an "official" POV, but I'm wholeheartedly for jailbreaking, and I hope the Copyright Office does the right thing (or as right as can be in our insane post-DMCA world) and issues an exemption.

#3. When you enter m.google.com/voice in your Safari browser, it will recognize you iPhone and will show a message saying this service is not supported on your phone. Sigh!

@JennQPublic: Let's say you have a telemarketer/disgruntled ex/etc. who is bothering you. Just click "report spam" on one of their calls, and any future calls they make to you will get sent straight to voicemail, and the voicemail will be stored in the spam folder. You'll never see/hear from them again!

Bonus: if enough people start flagging a specific company as a telemarketer, it is more likely that said company may be blocked from calling all Google Voice customers. Crowdsourcing FTW!

#4. For any contact that's sent your Google Voice number a text message, save the 406 number to their contact info (I use the 'pager' field). You can then call this number from any of your assigned phones, and it'll ring the contact as your Google Voice number.

@screwywabbit: But you'll notice the link is to [www.google.com] This link works fine though the interface is rough. Dialing a call uses the QWERTY keyboard, not the number pad.

Or option 0: Android.

@JennQPublic: I think it really depends on how much control the user needs over their incoming calls.

If, say, someone uses a single cell phone for everything, and doesn't find themselves screening calls, GV is mostly a novelty. Some neat voice mail and SMS features, in exchange for a new number they have to share around.

Once multiple numbers come into play, however, more of the features start to shine. I've got an office line at work, a VOIP line in my home office, and a cell phone. I have a number of coworkers in various global time zones, some of whom dial first, check the clock later. This leads to cell phone calls at midnight, office line calls when I'm at home, etc. Frustrating for me, frustrating for the coworkers.

With GV, I can give out the one number, and set schedules for what rings when, and from whom. So during business hours on weekdays, all three lines ring. In the evening, my cell phone and VOIP ring. At night, my cell phone and VOIP ring for family and friends, coworkers go straight to voice mail (text messages still come through, in case of emergency). Very handy for both caller and recipient.

I set up the Card Caller system, and it worked fine, but then I figured out how it works and realized any number in contacts can be set to route through GV by adding the Google Voice number and some other info.

Here's the basic formula: YOURGVNUM,,PIN,2,ENDNUMBER#

The commas are pauses, which you can add by tapping the "+*#" key.

Example: If your GV number is (555) 555-5555, your PIN is 1234, and your credit card company is at (800)123-4567, you can call the company through GV by adding this as one of their numbers in your contacts:
(555) 555-5555 ,,1234,2,8001234567#

The beginning part of that formula can be copied and pasted to any contact number. I just added my wife's office number this way and even timed out the pauses to dial the extension automatically. That pause is really useful. (And yes, this does eliminate the need to use Card Caller.)

@JennQPublic: my friend is waiting for his invitation because he's about to wander around the US for a couple of years. he figures that the feature that transcribes voice mail for you will be useful for when he's out of touch for a few days or weeks and then wants to look at all his messages when he gets back to an internet connection.

also, no matter he does with his phone in the next couple of years, his mom will have a stable number to call him at and you know how moms are....

@Rachacha: I think I may have to set this up for the next time my husband travels out of the country.

@ Everyone: Okay, I'm starting to get it. It sounds like it can do a lot, considering that everyone focused on different features (depending, I assume, on their needs). But I'd expect nothing less from Google.

I guess I'll just have to jailbreak after all. ;)

@Cant_stop_the_rock: I do the exact same thing. I've also had a GV # since the GrandCentral days, and I use it to keep the heathens from having my real #.

@JennQPublic: I travel internationally a fair amount, and I prefer Skype to communicate with my family when I am traveling. Skype is free computer to computer, or if I want to call a "real phone", it is usually 1-2 cents per minute. The added advantage is I can do video conferencing with the family so I can actually see my wife and kids.

The Google voice would work fine, but you would need to call him at his hotel or the international minutes on his cell phone would remove any cost savings.

Take a look at the GV home page for more details and a video demonstration:
[www.google.com]

@JennQPublic: free text messaging