Rob's Rants

The other day it was announced all over the web that Google Voice was finally available again for the iPhone, only as a web app instead of a true app. Google created a web page at http://m.google.com/voice rather than trying to get another app approved n the App Store. I checked it out on my iPhone (yes, I have one too — for work) and it is a great app. Although it doesn’t integrate fully with the iPhone contacts and dialer, it does present a decent dialer of its own and works very quickly and cleanly, initiating calls via the web and calling the handset back to complete the call.

Google says on the mobile web page that the m.google.com/voice page works for the iphone and for BlackBerries; the page identifies the phone type when you get to the page and directs you appropriately. So I wondered what would happen if I went there with a Windows Mobile browser like Opera.

Google Voice Mobile Screen

The result is a useful if ugly web page. The interface is limited to simple links, but all the necessary functionality is available. You can initiate a call by simply adding the number or selecting something from your Google contacts (it doesn’t integrate with your phone contacts). You can also see and manage any voicemail messages that you have.

By assigning Opera to a speed dial key on the phone and then assigning the Google page to a numbered bookmark, the page is only three clicks from any page on the phone. It isn’t quite iPhone convenient, but it works.

The downside to this implementation is that it’s dependent on a data connection, so you can’t use it where you have phone only service. This probably isn’t an issue for Verizon customers, but us T-Mobile and AT&T folks need to worry about these things.

Google Voice Mobile Connect Screen

Initiating a quick call is pretty simple and it does integrate with your contacts. It uses the callback method, so once you input a number or select a contact to call, you are presented with a list of your registered phones and the option to select the one to connect with the call. The iPhone app recognizes that it’s your iPhone, and once set up will always ring back to that number.

Please note that I have captured these screens from my Dash 3G with its tiny QVGA screen. I’m willing to bet that this app will look and work better on a larger touchscreen device. But at least those of us with non-touchscreen Windows Mobile smartphones finally have a workable Google Voice method besides GVoice Dialer. At the very least, it will give me another option to overcome the problems I’ve been having with GVoice Dialer connecting, particularly in noisy environments.

I’ve written about GVoiceDialer before, and in spite of some problems, I’ve continued to use it, since it’s really the only Google Voice client available for non-touchscreen Windows Mobile phones.

However, I was growing increasingly frustrated with it because it would frequently fail to complete my calls. Usually the Google computerized voice would indicate that invalid keys had been pressed or some other error would occur. It was very unreliable. Well it finally occurred to me the other day what was happening. Most of the time when I had trouble, I was either outside in Boston, or on a train. When it worked, I was either at home or in my office. So I attributed the issue to signal strength. Maybe I wasn’t getting more than 1 bar when outside and the keys weren’t registering correctly.

In reality — it is the background noise! My house and office are quiet. Other locations where I typically use it aren’t . And I discovered that the background noise often prevents the Google system from recognizing the DTMF tones correctly. So the trick is to mute your phone as soon as GVoiceDialer starts the call and unmute once you hear the “this is a free call” announcement from Google. Since I’ve started this trick, GVoiceDialer has proven very reliable, regardless of where I use it.

This should be a feature built into the next version (assuming there is a next version). Muting of the phone’s mic when dialing.

But for now, it works much better if I remember to mute the phone.