Google Voice Comes to the iPhone

Apple told Google that its Voice app was not welcome in the App Store, to the chagrin of many users of the service. Google did not give up, it went ahead and developed a web app that works on any handset supporting HTML 5.

Now iPhone users can get Google Voice using the web app. Simply browse over to m.google.com/voice in Mobile Safari to access the service on your iPhone.

There are some options missing in the Google Voice web app that are normally available on the web. For example, you can't download or embed voicemails in the web app, or record custom messages. Still, providing most of the functionality in a web app to get around Apple's App Store rules is a pretty good move by Google to reach the maximum number of Voice users.

Here's some background on the features of Google Voice. The service is still invite-only.

- Google voicemail: voicemail like email
- Voicemail transcription: read what your voicemail says
- Custom greetings: vary voicemail greetings by caller
- International calling: low cost calls to the world
- Notifications: read voicemail messages via email or SMS
- Share voicemails: forward, embed, or download voicemails

If you choose to get a Google number, these features are activated:

- One number: a single phone number that rings all your phones
- Free SMS: send, receive & store text messages online
- Block calls: send unwanted callers straight to voicemail
- Record calls: record phone calls and store them online
- Conference calls: join several people into a single call
- Screen callers: hear who is calling before you pick up