Google Voice bypasses Apple and makes their own app

Posted on January 27, 2010 | Category: Apple, Browsers, Google Voice, HTML5, Images, Informational, iPhone

Last summer, Apple rejected Google’s app for including Voice into the thousands of apps available on the iPhone. VoiceCentral, a third-party web-based app for Voice, was also pulled from the App store. Do you think that Apple does not want the competition? Yeah, me too.

Google Voice became available yesterday afternoon for both the iPhone and Palm Pre/Pixi via Google’s new mobile website http://m.google.com/voice. For convenience, I just bookmarked the site on my browser and called it good.

The new Google Voice web app provides you with your transcribed Inbox, settings, and more. The main screen shows the ability to call and send SMS, both of which I tried and are functional. When you type in a phone number to call, the information is routed through Google’s servers, and then calls you back. When you pick up, the phone is ringing with the phone number that you just input. When someone receives the call, your telephone number is displayed, not Google’s.

The web app is built with HTML5. However, the major downside of this web app is that it cannot interface with your locally stored contacts, which is quite a shame. Not necessarily on Google, but for Apple for not letting innovation occur.