It’s been a wild ride for native Google Voice apps on the iPhone: After getting booted out of the App Store more than a year ago for reportedly “duplicating existing functionality,” they’re back with a vengeance this month -- and if the rumors are true, an official app from Google may soon join the fray.
TechCrunch is reporting that Apple has already approved an official Google Voice app, which could appear anytime within the next few weeks. That information comes direct from “a source close to Google,” although the app apparently needs to be reworked for iOS 4 and multitasking after languishing for over a year since its rejection last summer.
As you may recall, Google submitted an official Google Voice app to Apple in July, 2009 which never made it to the App Store -- Google claimed the app was rejected, while Apple denied that claim and said it simply needed additional review time. Whatever the case, the fracas carried over to a trio of third-party apps, including the popular GV Mobile from developer Sean Kovacs and VoiceCentral from Riverturn, all of which were yanked from iTunes, never to return. Or so we thought.
After Apple detailed new App Store guidelines back on September 9, they inadvertently paved the way for the triumphant return of Google Voice apps to iOS, first with developer Andreas Amann’s GV Connect and almost immediately after, a refreshed GV Mobile+ from Kovacs. (Riverturn is also exploring the return of VoiceCentral after retooling the app into an HTML5 “weblication” called Black Swan, which is still available.)
The return of third-party Google Voice apps to the iPhone then begged the question, “What about Google?” Officially the company didn’t have much to say on the matter, issuing a brief non-statement along the lines of: “We currently offer Google Voice mobile apps for Blackberry and Android, and we offer an HTML5 web app for the iPhone. We have nothing further to announce at this time.”
That may very well be the case, but it’s almost a no-brainer that Google will want a native app on the iPhone, and as TechCrunch notes, “it’s entirely possible that it will include functionality that the others don’t” -- namely push notifications for incoming SMS and voicemail messages, which have been difficult for third-party developers due to the lack of an official API from Google. Stay tuned!
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
It was an exciting weekend for Google Voice fans who use the iPhone, with not one but two native apps back in the App Store after being unceremoniously outlawed by Apple more than a year ago.
TechCrunch is reporting that developer Sean Kovacs has made a triumphant return to the iOS platform with GV Mobile+, an updated version of the Google Voice client that was dumped from the platform last year. The app was made available again late Saturday night, a byproduct of the new, looser App Store guidelines that Apple recently put in place.
GV Mobile+ is a front-end client for the free Google Voice service, which essentially allows you to have “one number for life” and route those calls to multiple phones (be they landlines or cell-based), including SMS, voicemail and more. After being dumped by Apple, the app found a new home on Cydia, where it has continued to be updated for users with jailbroken devices. But now it’s back where it belongs, in the App Store.
Apple must also be feeling extra generous to Google Voice users, since GV Mobile+ actually wasn’t the first such app to return to the App Store this past week -- on Friday, a new app called GV Connect from developer Andreas Amann actually beat Kovacs to the punch, although GV Mobile+ is the better-known app given its troubled history, which has been widely documented in the tech press.
As you may recall, GV Mobile+ and a competing app from Riverturn called VoiceCentral were both available for sale prior to July, 2009. When Google submitted their own Voice app to Apple, it was effectively banned from the App Store, and the two third-party solutions were banished as well. To this day it’s still not clear what happened, since none of the apps actually broke any App Store rules; TechCrunch and many others have been left to assume that the Google Voice clients simply got “caught in the crossfire of the growing rivalry between Apple and Google.”
Whatever the reason, we now have two native Google Voice clients available for the iPhone, and a third solution has been available for months as well in the form of Riverturn’s VoiceCentral Black Swan, which is essentially a souped-up HTML5 bookmarklet that circumvents the App Store entirely and does a fine job of offering Google Voice functionality on its own terms. Riverturn claims that they will likely revise and resubmit their own native VoiceCentral app in the near future.
GV Mobile+ and GV Connect are each $2.99 and both offer similar functionality; neither app currently offers push notifications for SMS text messages, but Kovacs plans to implement them in GV Mobile+ with a future update. A free Google Voice account is required to use either app.
Now the real question is, where is Google’s own, official Voice app? After being denied a spot in the App Store and sparking an infamous FCC inquiry last year, the app remains a no-show. Google only offers the following non-statement: “We currently offer Google Voice mobile apps for Blackberry and Android, and we offer an HTML5 web app for the iPhone. We have nothing further to announce at this time.”
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
Here’s a tweet from Sean Kovacs, the developer of the GV Mobile Google Voice app (now renamed to GV Mobile +) for the iPhone, from just a short while ago:
GV Mobile, the unofficial Google Voice application, may actually make it back to the App Store after all. After the GV Mobile application was pulled by Apple almost 2 years ago, along with the Official Google Voice application (which never made it past the approval process), many Google Voice users wondered if they would ever see the Google Voice functionality in an app on their iOS devices. But a recent tweet by GV Mobile application developer, Sean Kovacs, revealed that Apple has finally broken their silence about Google Voice on the App Store.
"Good news: I did get confirmation back from Apple that it will most likely get back in once I resubmit," tweeted Sean Kovacs.
This definitely is good news for the many Google Voice users who patiently await either an official or unofficial solution for dialing numbers through Google Voice. GV Mobile allows you to call contacts in your Google Voice address book or your iPhone address book through your Google Voice number, send and receive text messages through your Google Voice number, and retrieve your voicemail.
There's no word yet on when (or even if) Apple will approve the app for the App Store, but Kovas remains hopeful that the application may be back on the App Store in a week.
Apple's change of heart may be linked to the new developer guidelines that were published yesterday, but there's no word yet on if this is the case.
via Geek.com
Follow this article's author, Cory Bohon on Twitter.
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Installing Black Swan is a snap: You simply go to an installer website, add the resulting “weblication” to your home screen and then click to open it like any other app. Enter your Google Voice login & password information, select your desired callback number from the ones already set up in your account, and you’re ready to go.
Click on an SMS from within the app and you’re taken to a familiar iChat-style bubble of your conversation, just like the stock iPhone Messages app. Click on the button in the upper left to create a new SMS message, then click the “+” button to add your contact (or type one in yourself).
A Few Caveats
The biggest downside to Black Swan’s use of Google contacts is actually a fault with Google -- rather than the option to sort your contacts by last name as the Mac Address Book and iPhone Contacts allow, everything is sort by first name only, which will produce a few frustrating moments for iPhone users used to having them the other way around. Also, because this not a true SDK-developed app, the earpiece of your device is off-limits, so voicemails can only be played back through the speaker or headphone jack. (Calls are not a problem, since Google Voice is actually a callback service and not VoIP.)
Besides those two caveats, VoiceCentral Black Swan -- even in its present beta form -- works great and delivers as promised. It installed quickly and easily on both our first-gen iPhone as well as our iPhone 3GS, and in most cases seemed even a bit faster at pulling data from Google’s servers than the competing GV Mobile + jailbreak-only app.
A Controversial Beginning
Google Voice was born in 2006 as a free, web-based service called
GrandCentral, giving users a new telephone number capable of ringing
multiple phone numbers at once -- home, cell, work, you name it -- and
even lets you take a call at one number, then shift it seamlessly over
to
another (for instance, from home phone to cell phone) so you can
continue the call on the go, uninterrupted. The service promised “one
number for life,” including a unified voicemail box, call screening and
much more.
Google
purchased GrandCentral in July, 2007 and it
seemed for some time that nothing would be done with it -- until 21
months later, when the service relaunched as Google Voice
(free, but currently available by invitation only). Among the many new
features added to the Voice service were voicemail transcription, free
calls in the U.S. & Canada and cheap international calls.
However,
like GrandCentral before it, the Google Voice service itself was still
tied to a website, and despite a respectable attempt at a mobile version
of the site, it was clear that a dedicated iPhone app would make the
service even more worthwhile.
That’s where third-party App Store
developers came in. For whatever reason, Apple allowed a handful of
third-party
Google Voice apps in the App Store for months prior to Google attempting
to release their own version, which was promptly rejected. But after rejecting Google Voice from the App store, Apple began pulling all the third-party apps, resulting in a veritable firestorm of controversy -- as well as
a pending FCC
investigation -- that’s been well documented in the media.
Thankfully, independant developers have since managed to figure out a way to bypass Apple's stringent App Store approval process by writing an application that could be used through the iPhone's native web browser. Finally, a way to put that Google Voice invitation to good use. Our only hope is that Black Swan is here to stay, though it's obviously a temporary solution to a bigger issue.
Well, this all sounds pretty awesome. When will Black Swan be available?
Riverturn’s beta program for Black Swan is currently limited, but promises to open up to more users throughout January and February. If you’re a Google Voice user who doesn’t want to jailbreak your device and is tired of waiting for Apple to get its act together, head over to the Riverturn website and sign up for beta access. While there’s no word yet on what the service may eventually cost, for now the beta is an excellent peek into the future of how developers may get around some of the App Store approval nightmares, and an extremely capable Google Voice app to boot.
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