Recently Google Voice made its return to webOS in app form and it looks and feels like it was part of the OS all along. What is even more remarkable than the fact that it took this long for a developer to find a workaround for the problems that killed the old Google Voice apps, is the revelation that the developer who finally figured it out is only 14 years old.
Google Voice has returned to webOS with a brand new app that lets you call and text from your Google Voice number right on your phone just like the good old days.
Voogle has hit the official App Catalog, and it has an interface that is almost exactly like the native webOS messaging app and dial pad. You should feel right at home transitioning to this as your communications method of choice. It will even replace your carrier voicemail with Google voicemail. Setting it up could not be easier as it walks you through a couple quick steps to set up as soon as you launch the app.
Aside from the typical calling and texting from within the app, you will also be able to listen to your voicemail and recorded calls, and read voicemail transcripts. There are folders for starred messages, missed calls and dialed calls, received calls and more. In short, everything in your Google Voice account.
This is not all either. There are more features to come including mutlimedia messaging and real time notifications. Plus, according to the developer, "Voogle also supports cross-app launching so pretty soon some of your other favorite apps can start utilizing the power of Voogle."
Get it right now for $1.99 in the App Catalog.
Developers and users alike have all noticed this “Default Apps” option in the webOS launcher. Right now the only out-of-the-box option users are presented with is a choice of Google Maps or their carrier’s navigation solution (if applicable) for the default mapping software. But below the defaults for web, email, and phone, there’s a long list of file types and the default app used to open them (PDFs opened by PDF View, .WAV opened by Music, and so forth).
When the Default Apps scene appeared back in November with webOS 1.3.1, and was enabled with 1.3.5 a month later, we were all aflutter as to what that could mean for webOS. Pick your own third party dialer app (Google Voice), web browser, and more? That’d be grand. Sadly, Palm has yet to release an API for developers to set their app as an option for default apps, but that hasn’t stopped Jason Robitaille and Rod Whitby from hacking their way onto the Default Apps screen.
The addition of service calls registers an app with the Default Apps service, selecting the app as the default when no other apps present open that file type, and setting it as an option when there are already apps that open said file. For example, Robitaille’s Internalz app is registered as the default app for more than twenty different file types, and appears as an option for .TXT, with Doc View as the other and default choice. Tap on the file type, select the new apps, back swipe, and you’re good to go.
Jason does note that it’s not entirely stable (thus Palm not publishing the API), and that some not-all-that clean "mimetype" registering to get Internalz to be an option for file types already defaulted by another app (e.g. a PDF viewer app would have to masquerade as PDF View to trick Default Apps into giving it the option).
Of course, it’s worth noting that because Palm has not released the APIs to performing these service calls, any app submitted (be it to the App Catalog, beta, or web distribution feeds) will be automatically and summarily rejected. But that’s not to stop developers from wishing, hoping, dreaming, and preparing. And releasing via homebrew… nudge nudge, wink wink.
Source: MetaViewSoft
Google Voice is now open (and free) to everybody, so if you haven’t signed up yet now’s your chance to get the best darned online voicemail, text-message, and call-redirection service out there. There’s also a darned-slick web interface for the whole thing that works quite well on webOS devices.
Of course, if you really want to use Google Voice to its fullest, you need a native app for it. We once had several of those that worked nearly as well as Google’s own app does on Android, including my personal favorite gDial Pro. Unfortunately, way back in February a sad coincidence of changes in Google Voice’s API and webOS’s functionality has seriously hurt the chances of any Google Voice app for webOS working without intervention and help from Google, Palm, or both.
We once mentioned that you could suggest a feature for Google Voice and one option was a "Palm application." We’re hoping that some of our readers will go suggest that Google and Palm make friends and make Google Voice work again on webOS (and, hey, we wouldn’t complain if Google Maps got an update). By "some of our readers," we mean "executives at Hewlett Packard" – in case that wasn’t completely clear.
Source: Google Voice Blog
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.
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!
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.
If you’re a Google Voice user and for some reason you aren’t feeling any of the several options available to you in the Official App Catalog or in Homebrew, then you’re in luck. Thanks to Apple’s boneheaded App Store policies, Google was forced to step up their game and improve the heck out of their mobile Google Voice interface. The good news is that this ‘designed for iPhone’ look and feel works just fine on the webOS browser.
The web app works in a fashion almost identical to how our current, native webOS clients work: you find the number you want to call, Google calls you, you answer, and voila: connection via Google Voice.
Sure, you lose things like local contact search, but what you gain is… the ability to tell iPhone users that they’re not so special. Either way, Google Voice users can hit it up at google.com/voice/m
Thanks to everybody who sent this in!
We’ve long wanted true visual voicemail on webOS: having the ability to browse a listing of your voicemails and listen to them directly from that app turns out to be one of those little features that is hard to give up once you’ve tried it.
Well, it turns out that a lucky few can get visual voicemail going on webOS – you can do it with Google Voice and it works quite well. Now that Sprint no longer chargers for "conditional call forwarding," it also means that you can get it for free.
Here’s how:
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!