Now that gDial Pro is no longer in the picture, there’s a real void in the native visual voicemail application space for webOS.  Sure, Google Voice has a fantastic web interface, but it’ll never compare to an actual on-device application.   Until better GV support comes to webOS, YouView ($3.99 in the Catalog) – which was plugged on Palm’s official blog in its homebrew days – should satisfy (or even convince you to switch) your on-device visual voicemail needs.

The YouMail service is free after purchasing the app, and offers voicemail management from the phone and the online interface at youmail.com.  The free service plan does not include transcriptions, which isn’t a big deal – it’s not like the transcriptions offered by Google Voice are actually usable.  For various monthly fees YouMail does offer transcription of the first minute of or of a voicemail, and those transcripts are actually accurate (shocker!).

The user interface is excellent, and even in its current beta form (0.5.21 as of this writing), the program runs great.  Unlike gDial Pro, YouMail can link into Synergy, and there’s a myriad of greeting options – from smart greetings that greet callers by name to case specific greetings for blocked and unknown numbers – that go into making the use of this program a treat.

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Citing concerns over reliability due to new API requirements from Google, the developer of gDial Pro has decided to pull his app from the App Catalog. Here’s the message posted on gDial Pro’s Facebook page:

“Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are not going to be able to provide a reliable service as users have come to expect. We have decided we would rather pull the plug now than have users continue to experience disruptions due to various changes outside of our control. All subscribed users should already see a refund in their Paypal account. It was a crazy ride, but for now it’s over.”

Those circumstances are the new Google Voice APIs we discussed earlier in the week, and how the updated requirements for Google Voice are incompatible with the current restrictions of webOS and the Mojo SDK. While the door was very clearly left open for the return of gDial, we can’t see that happening until Google Voice APIs and webOS capabilities are on the same page.

While we are saddened to see a great application like gDial Pro disappear and frustrated that there is a disconnect in the access needed for powerful services like Google Voice and the access provided by webOS, we do have to applaud Nathan’s (gDial Pro’s developer) do-it-right-or-go-home attitude. A half-baked and unreliable user experience is not in the best interests of any user nor any serious developer. All that said, we do look forward to the day when the stars will align and gDial Pro can come back and get Google Voice action again going on webOS.

Thanks to amateurhack, Alben, and hparsons for the tip!

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It’s a question we’ve been pondering for a while, and with much more intensity in recent days: does Google care about Palm webOS? It is something we have to wonder about, with Google Maps on webOS lagging greatly behind its iPhone and Android counterparts, webOS being at first excluded from the Buzz party and then only invited inside the lobby, and the general lack of effort Google seems to be publicly exerting in getting their products to work to their full potential on webOS.

It all came to a head last week, with Google making a change to the way Google Voice works that ended up breaking webOS Google Voice clients, such as the popular gDial Pro. Nathan, the developer of gDial, learned that the change was not a move to break compatibility with unofficial Voice clients like gDial, but a natural progression of the development of the Google Voice system. In fact, Google has no problems with such unofficial clients and is pretty much willing to turn a blind eye to them so long as they aren’t acting in nefarious ways. Unfortunately, that blind eye doesn’t come with any support.

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The App Catalog has seen impressive growth since it first went live a little over 6 months ago.  Palm’s Early Access program brought in dozens of developers who have created over 1,000 applications in that time frame, and while we don’t have access to as many apps as other smartphone platforms do, there are a number of high quality ones that fit into all of the important categories.

With that in mind, we’ve created a list of the must have applications that have come our way in 2009.  If you’re new to webOS (you should also see our getting started guide), or have been with the platform for awhile and are unaware of how the Catalog has grown over these last few months, this is a guide for you.

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As was announced back during the Sprint Open Developers Conference last month, Sprint has finished rolling out free conditional call forwarding out to everyone so folks with a Google Voice account can start using the Google Voicemail service while keeping their Sprint number as their primary number. 

Gone now is the $0.20 per minute charge for no answer and busy call forwarding, replaced with the ability to manage your voicemail visually with Google Voice online and with programs like dkGoogleVoice and gDial Pro right on your webOS powered handset of choice.

Conditional call forwarding uses the *28xxxxxxxxxx code, where the xxxxxxxxxx is your phone number. Note that your original number still rings before forwarding happens and you’ll need to futz with your Google Voice settings if you want to send calls directly to voicemail before rining your Google Voice number. There’s plenty more information in this forum thread. Dial *38 to turn it off. Direct *72 call forwarding still costs you $.20 per minute.

While everyone’s Sprint account should be updated as of this posting, it may not be a bad idea to call Customer Service (dial *2) before enabling this feature just to make sure.

Thanks to everyone that sent this in!

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In all the years I’ve been watching technology, I have never seen a system update go off without a single hitch. There’s always something that goes wrong, and yesterday’s webOS update to 1.2.0 was no exception.

The majority of users have updated to 1.2.0 with nary a hitch to be found. But in the interests of full disclosure (and commiseration with your pain), here are some of the issues our members are facimg:

In the category of “things that don’t work the way they were supposed to work,” some 1.2 users have noted that when they receive a new IM/SMS message notification, only the message icon and the user’s picture are displayed – no text along with the notification. The launcher, which could previously be opened by swiping up in card view and closed by swiping down, now only responds to up swipes (open and close). The main reason for this is that a quick down-swipe on the top of the screen now will bring you either of the top menus. Similarly notifications cannot be minimized with a swipe down – you must either dismiss the notification or tap in the open app and hope you don’t touch an on-screen button.

And that’s not all, users have reported Google services location pinpointing their location up to ten miles off target (GPS works correctly), that IMAP Idle is not working, that email error messages keep repeating, and that Classic WiFi HotSync does not yet work (likely an update to Classic is also needed). There are several other issues that have affected a handful of users, ranging from issues with gDial to frozen web browsing to USB charging suddenly not working.

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