Rant: Google on the iPhone

I am a google fan. I have a cr-48 ChromeOS Notebook that I have almost been converted to. I have a google tv which is amazing except when the remote freezes, but I have not been happy with almost any google iPhone apps, and I have tried them all. List hear what I think of them all.

Google Mobile App: The voice search is okay, but not enough to make me want to open this and then maybe have to switch to Safari after, it just isn't a smooth transition. It has push notifications for gmail, which is just weird. The great feature here is Google Goggles, which should be its own app, I would actually use it if I didn't have to go through that app.

Google Earth: I just don't know how to use this. I keep it to occasionally get GPS locations for geocaching, but there isn't really a real use.

Google Voice: This is the app I have been most excited for. I even bought a third party one for a while, I used work around and anything I could for almost a year. The one thing this brought was push notifications. That is awesome, except the app itself is sub par. Half the time when I try to type a text it will update, hiding the text box under the keyboard, and then when I try to edit the box after, it just deletes everything. It has problems in anything but the best of internet, and just generally is lame. I use it because of the push notifications, and the calling feature actually works, but if there was something better I would probably switch.

Google Latitude: Cool idea, just no one uses it, and it doesn't integrate well with things. I wanted it for so long, then when it finally came out it was just meh.

There are others, Google Books, I haven't tried much, Google Authenticator, I don't understand, and Google Places, which I have now, but haven't started using it much.

All in all, I don't like the soft blue look of all their apps, they don't integrate, and I still don't have a remote for my google tv. I know I shouldn't complain because they are all free, but it you have a product make it good.

I think I was just mad about how the google voice app just didn't work 3 out of the last 5 times I wanted it to. I now switch to my laptop to text most the time because it isn't worth the hassle of using the app. The Chrome extension for Google Voice is amazing and one of the reasons I cannot go back to Firefox.

Thanks google for doing okay, but get an iPhone App department that actually uses iPhones.

Rave: Free iPhone Texting.

After almost a year of trying to figure it out I kind of got a work around working for texting through Google Voice on my iPhone. First get a GV account. They are now free if you have a gmail and live in the US, just go to here. You need to make up a new number, which is the annoying thing, but you can use it with your phone forever after. From that point you can text and call from the mobile web page, but it it is kind of annoying. Instead go to Voice Central and sign up, that will tell you how to get something that looks as good as an app on your phone, to text and call from, with your GV number. There would be a real app, but apple is a bunch of jerks and blocked all of them. The only problem is that it doesn't do push notifications. From this point, you can just get emails every time someone texts you, but that gets boring, so instead go to GVMax and set up an account to forward your texts to your google talk. It is really simple to sign up. Last download meebo! and sign in with your google talk account, which is the same everything as your gmail, and tada, it pushes every time you get a new text, and added them to your buddy list, so that you can text them forever from there. That is what I do, and it works pretty well, if you ever need to start a new text to someone not on the buddy list, just open voice central and start it there.

Rave: Google Voice, GVMax and Meebo

Google Voice is probably the best service that google has, which is quite the statement, but I still think it is true. The basics of google voice is that you get a new number and it redirects to whatever phone you want, and passes your texts to your phone too. It has some really cool features like transcribed voicemails, choosing a time of day not to be disturbed and being able to block people you don't like. Other cool features are things like the widget that I have on the side of my page here, where you can call me without actually knowing my number. My favorite use of it is giving out that number on craigslist so I don't get calls for the rest of my life.

Since getting google voice sometime last year I have been trying to do something good with it, especially text for free on my iPhone, or even call over VOIP using it. As of today I can do both.

I have been trying to text with Push notification on my iphone for a while, and until today I have used apps like TextNow Lite or Messagey which did let me get Push notifications, but I could not respond. I would have to then open the gv web app and respond from there. It got annoying. I have a work around, it isn't the coolest ever, that would take jailbreaking my phone, but for those of us who want to be legal, her is what I do. You will need an app called Meebo and a google talk account (which you have if you have gmail, even if you didn't know you did). Go to the GVMax web site and set it up. GVMax will do a lot for you first, and most importantly it will forward all your texts to a your google talk messenger (as long as you had click the option in google voice to have it send texts to your email.) Now open up Meebo and sign in with your google talk account. I choose Meebo for two reasons: it has push notifications, and it pushes forever, no auto-logout ever. This is important if you want to use it for texting. Once you have that all set up you can text for free forever, as long as you have internet. (This work with an ipod touch and wifi.)

One thing that a lot of people want with google voice to make VOIP or SIP calls. There was something called Gizmo5 which made it simple and work. Problem is google bought the company and who knows when it will be released again. I will give an update when it is re-released, but till then I have a work around. Remember this is a work around, so it isn't the best, but for the time being it works. So a few days ago I stumbled across this web page that tells how to set up a number for incoming calls using PBXes.org and IPKall. If you follow that tutorial you will end up with a new phone number that receives calls. If you have an iPhone this is great, just download an app that work for SIP calling and set that account up. I have tried NimBuzz and Fring. I use Fring because it worked better on my phone, but the setup is about the same on both.

The tricky part of the whole process is for outgoing calls. This is when once again GVMax helps us out. Nimbuzz and fring let you log into google talk so you can use the chat thing I told you about before. There is an option for GVMax what when in a chat with someone you can type ggc and it will call that person. There are more options which GVMax has, but the chat inside the app that makes it possible to have it wall work, and not need to multitask (iPhone's biggest flaw).

GVMax also does something that I have been try to do, mass texts through google voice. Google Voice blocks you to only text 5 people at a time, to stop you from using their service to spam people, GVMax goes around this. It uses google's contact groups, and text to an entire group, using their cool chat feature. The best part is, you don't even need an iphone or anything, you can just use the chat in the side of your gmail.

I have spent a lot of time trying to get everything working, and have found some other useful things. The one I will talk about now is Voice Central Black Swan. This is a web app, so you don't have to go through apple, just go to their page through safari after you sign up and it will tell you how to make it into an app. I don't think Black Swan is the great, because it doesn't have push notifications and it has adds, but it does one thing that the google web app does't. Black Swan lets you choose which phone you want it to call. For all you iPod Touch users, you now have a way to call people without using the GVMax chat work around.

Point of the story is that if you have Google Voice you can make all the calls and texts you want for free, it just takes some work. There are other ways to use it, this is just my preference. If you don't have it and are a student click here and get an invite within 24 hours, if not click here and wait. Good luck!