If you have not yet heard of google voice its basically a service that provides you a phone number that you can use to make phone calls, and send and receive text messages through google. In any case the best way to find out about the service is to simply watch the videos posted on the website at http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html.
Google Voice is a very convenient service because it can save you money on your cell phone bill by no longer needing to pay the extra $15 for unlimited text messages all you need is access to the web. This service is easily available on any phone that uses the Android OS. Unfortunately Apple did not approve the Google Voice app on the iPhone appstore and therefore there is no easy way to receive push notifications to your iPhone when you have received a text message or voice mail on your google voice number. The closest thing you have is the ability to receive e-mails that are forwarded to your phone (if you have your e-mail set up on your phone).
Luckily you still have some options if you are an iPhone owner. You do need to jump through a bit of hurdles if you wish to get this done though.
Things you will need:
- An iPhone.. Duh!
- Prowl (iPhone App)
- Either an account at: http://googlevoice.ub3rk1tten.com/voicegrowl/ or with https://www.gvmax.com/
I have used the Voice Growl service in the past and works quiet well, with the exception that at times the service does go down for a few minutes. I have not tested or used GVMax but it does sound promising and the software is now open source as well which may be something you Java nerds may like to take a look at.
Sadly enough these services provide you with a means to receive Push notifications to your iPhone when you receive a message but still does not provide you with an easy means to reply back. You can simply use googles renovated google voice mobile site which works well but depending on how fast your connection may be can slow you down. Or if you have a jailbroken iphone you can always give the app found in Cydia.
If you are one handy developer there are also many libraries written in various languages that you can use to your advantage for receiving and replying to messages. Prowl has various 3rd party libraries you can use to send notifications to your iPhone. I have found the php library found at github to work well for all my needs http://github.com/Fenric/ProwlPHP. Aside from that there are also various third party libraries for Google Voice (aka unofficial google voice api) in many languages all you need to do is perform a google search, I currently use the PHP library found at github http://github.com/aaronpk/Google-Voice-PHP-API. If you are a developer with a little creativity and a bit of time you can come up with a good solution for your iPhone Google Voice needs.
I will soon be posting my own code as well as I currently use Google Voice -> My Dreamhost Procmail -> Prowl & Gtalk to receive messages and currently working on an XMPP format to send messages back.
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