I am a heavy user of Google Voice but the iPhone support is awful – it’s that basic.

There are four options:

1. the dial interface to Google Voice – the average call takes about 24 digits !
2. the Google Voice web app – runs in Safari and looks it It suffers from log-in limitations of iPhone Safari, and it’s just a web site
3. the GV Mobile+ native app – only available if you Jailbreak your device
4. the Black Swan VoiceCentral "client side web app" – checks for updates via the web but stores most of it’s function and data in LocalStorage, but suffers from cross-site JavaScript restrictions which puts a "man in the middle" and its $6/yr (every year)

There are likely two directions for Google:

• deliver their own "client side web app" – direct from the GoogleVoice site
• deliver "some other app" that has Google Voice features in it – this might happen given their acquisition of Gismo5

I’d be happy with either of the "possible" Google Voice directions. I’d vote for a real app, especially since I have a Gizmo5 account. I’d vote for a "client side web app" almost as fast !

I don’t even remember when I submitted my request …

 
You are invited to open a free Google Voice account. If you haven’t already heard about it, Google Voice is a service that makes using your current phones much better!

We hope you enjoy Google Voice,
The Google Voice Team

Looks like invites are going out quickly !

Google Voice is "one number to rule them all". I’ve known all along that Google would create "clients" for the Blackberry and the iPhone eventually. In the mean time, I wanted to do everything I could to make GV as usable as possible. I tried the free version of GV Mobile for the iPhone (iPod Touch) and liked it so much, I paid for the full version, knowing that at some point, Google would give me something for free. Still, at $2.99, the iPhone app was worth it.

The Blackberry has the GV Dialer app. I gave the 30 day trial a test run and was so underwhelmed, there was no way I would pay $7.99 for the real app. Thankfully, Google saved me.

Google Voice for Blackberry is free and quite usable. It does what it needs to; doesn’t try to do too much, and doesn’t get all wrapped around the axle when it comes to integrating into the Blackberry. My one complaint from initial testing is that it needs to do more caching and reduce the amount of effort and bandwidth it puts into my data connection when what I really want is to place a phone call. It needs a small amount of data to signal the servers for the call but otherwise, it should be less heavy in this department.

One complaint I’ve read but don’t echo is; "you can’t simply open your BlackBerry phonebook and dial via Google Voice". Personally, it was a pain to get my address book sync’d but I had to do that for the iPhone so now it’s a non issue. Besides, Google Voice remembers most recent dialed numbers so more often than not, I am dialing from my history and not from my address book.

So, for now it’s Google’s own app for the Blackberry and GV Mobile for the iPhone. I look forward to comparing Google’s own iPhone app when they launch it.