Official Google Voice iPhone App iPhone Launched – Now Roll-Out The Service Outside US Please?

Written by Rob Nichols on November 17, 2010 · Filed under Software, Tech 

We’ve had the likes of Skype on Android and a variety of other platforms for quite some time now and obviously Google Voice on Android as you would expect (at least in the US), but on the iPhone it has proven rather evasive for US users requiring the use of third party apps or use through the Safari browser. Until now.

Third-party apps for the service have been re-appearing all over the app store for a number of months now (after being removed some time ago), so it was only a matter of time before Google decided to spread its wings into the Apple Store, seeing as it insists on providing its software and services on rival platforms.

Which in itself is a curious strategy in all honesty, surely you’d think they’d want keep some of your best mobile features for their own Android mobile platform and give people more reason to move to it? Or at least roll out the Google Voice service to your existing Android users outside of the US first before that of users who have chosen a different mobile platform?

Anyway, the iPhone app has all the features that you’d expect from Google’s telephony service as well as a few extra iPhone-specific features

• Cheap rates for international calls
• Free text messaging to U.S. numbers
• Voicemail transcription
• Display your Google Voice number as caller ID when making calls
• With push notifications, the app will alert you instantly when you receive a new voicemail or text message (iPhone-specific)
• Most of your calls will be placed via Direct Access Numbers, making them connect just as quickly as regular phone calls (iPhone-specific)

Unfortunately for us, the Google Voice iPhone app is US only for now, but surely it will cross the Atlantic and reach the UK and Europe in the very near future, though obviously you will need a functioning Google Voice account, so I’m assuming…no…hoping that the Google Voice service does get rolled out beyond the borders of the US and perhaps even further integrated with GMail Voice and Video Chat?

For now, though, if you are reading from the US, yoube able to use the Google Voice iPhone app on an iPhone with iOS 3.1 or higher. Whereas if you’re in the UK…well…you’ll have to just chill out by listening to your Spotify music streaming service on your iPhone or Android mobile phone!

Via – Google Mobile Blog