I’ve been using Google Voice for a little over a month now and I’m really liking it. The one big problem with it, is the fact that it is hard to explain to people. I’m going to do my best here with some videos/screenshots to give people an idea of what it does. When I first heard about Google Voice, my first thought was that it was another voip service like skype and the others out there. Instead, it is a series of services that can be applied to your existing phone services. You can choose to get a new Google voice number that gives you access to everything or you can use your current number and have access to just a few of the features. I looked into both options and decided that getting a google voice number was the way to go mainly for two reasons. The first was the ability to have unlimited texting for free and the 2nd is that if I happen to switch phone providers for any reason I just simply update my google voice settings and do not have to give out another phone number.
Here is a video put together by google that explains the basics of what Google Voice and what it does.
Here are a few more showing some of the specifics of my favorite functions.
Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t allowed the Google Voice app on the iPhone, so you have to use a few work arounds to get it to work. Google has provided a web app that you can bookmark to your home screen. It will open up Safari and give you access to the dialer, texting, voicemails. I’ll create a new post on how I’ve setup text message through google voice to push through the iPhone. As of right now Google Voice is invite only, but you can request to be invited on their page. Here are a few screenshots I’ve take on my iPhone showing the web app in action.
