Google has extended their trial of Gmail Voice through the remainder of 2011.

Launched back in August 2010, gmail voice is an extension to gmail which allows users to call standard telephone numbers in Canada and the USA directly from gmail for free. Calls to other countries can be made for low rates. It achieved remarkable early success, as 1 million phone calls were made in the first 24 hours alone. 10 million calls were placed using the service in its first week.

Intended to be a market test, Google stated that they wanted to keep the service free for Canada/US calls, but needed to be able to justify it through some kind of revenue-generating business case. Apparently they found enough of one to warrant extending the service through 2011.

If the user has a Google Voice account, that person can also receive phone calls through their web browser. If the user does not have a Google Voice account (non-US users), the user will not be able to receive incoming phone calls to their browser.

I personally tried it on my laptop to make a call over wireless-g wifi and my home 15/1 cable connection and had issues with the sound cutting out and the connection dropping. Skype worked just fine immediately after however. I admittedly haven’t given it too much of a trial however, but am hopeful that it will become more usable.

Oh, and unfortunately it doesn’t work on mobile phones, at least not on my iPhone4.

1. Create a US iTunes account (no credit card needed). See here.
2. Using your iDevice, go to Settings/Store/Sign Out
3. Sign in to your US iTunes account
4. Download the Google Voice app on the App Store
5. Repeat sign out/sign in process, but sign in to your regular iTunes account.

Voila.

The techcrunch story has a lot of the details on the history of the app, but, briefly, it has been a long time in coming. Apple approved, then removed a third-party app called GV Mobile, which was essentially a Google Voice front-end, saying that the app violated Apple’s terms of use for apps in that it replicated functionality of the built-in phone application.

Recently, Apple revised its app guidlines, and GV Mobile (now GV Mobile+), as well as some others have been re-admitted. The official Google Voice app has been in the review queue for a while and just today has been approved.

But only in the US.

This makes sense, seeing as how Google Voice is officially only available in the US, and it is fairly easy to get around the geoblocking on this app as well. You’ll just need a US iTunes account (see here), and then follow my instructions here. I just tested it out and have the app on my Canadian iPhone.

The app does not work with “gmail voice” as you do need a full Google Voice account in order to log in to the app.

The app doesn’t seem to work with the iPod Touch (even the 4th gen which has a speaker and mic, and the ability to use the mic-enabled headphones), so this seems like an oversight. Let’s see if Google fixes this and allows iPod Touch users to use the app as well. No word yet on if it works with the iPad.

At least the app is here now (for some of us). Now we just need Google to expand Google Voice service to other countries.

Push notifications for text messaging are very quick and work as expected. It’s a nice way to get around expensive text messaging fees if you don’t subscribe to a plan.

They claim that there is no official word yet, just rumours that the app has been approved by Apple. This makes sense however, as several other Google Voice apps have been approved recently, with Apple’s revamping of the rules on the App Store.

I wonder how the producers of the other Google Voice apps will fare, as the official Google version is likely to be free…

Sean Kovacs has tweeted that GV Mobile+ has been approved (or at least that’s what I gather from it). That’s two today!

Update: (taken from seankovacs’ blog)

After a long year and a half of being home sick, GV Mobile (+) makes an epic return to the App Store. The app is still propagating to all the servers, so it may take a bit before it shows up. Here is the direct link: GV Mobile +. I’ll be blowing away some promo codes via Twitter (@seankovacs) once I get them AND if #gvmobile trends on Twitter, I’ll set that bad boy to free for the night.

The first Google Voice app has hit the app store, and it’s called GV Connect. Providing a front end to the Google Voice service, GV Connect allows users of devices running Apple iOS platform to have a native app with which to interact with Google Voice.

As you may know, one famous Google Voice app, GV Mobile, was approved, de-approved, and removed from the App Store several months ago as part of Apple’s cryptic and inconsistent app approval process. A recent re-think of this policy has seen Apple come around on this issue, and the developer of GV Mobile, Sean Kovacs, has said that Apple is now interested in re-examining his app (to be called GV Mobile+).

However, another app has hit the App Store first, and it is GV Connect. We’ll see how quickly they come now, and it will be interesting to see if Google comes out with their own native Google Voice app (one had apparently been developed and submitted to Apple months ago).

Be sure to check out the GV Mobile+ screenshots to compare the two apps.

Just to recap for those not up to date, Sean Kovacs is a part-time app developer who wrote an app called GV Mobile for the iPhone. It was approved by Apple, bought by users of the service, and then was mysteriously removed from the App Store for “replicating iPhone functionality”. Sean then deleted GV Mobile from the App Store, and sold it on the jailbroken app store, Cydia.

Apple recently revised the App Store guidelines, and it appears as though GV Mobile will be allowed back in. Because Sean deleted the app from the Apple database, he has to submit it as a new app, hence the slight name change to GV Mobile+.

Sean just posted some pictures of the app in action:

1. Call Screening – Caller is sent to voicemail and you can listen in.
2. Switching Calls – Receive a call in gmail, transfer it to your cell
3. Call Recording – Self-explanatory
4. Click-to-Dial Chrome Extension – A new extension for Chrome allows you to click on any phone number in a webpage and use gmail to call it.

This is a separate service from Google Voice, as you do not get a call-in number assigned to you, but if you have a Google Voice account and someone calls that number, you can set up Google Voice to notify you in gmail. It is great news that you don’t need a Google Voice account in order to take advantage of this service as this means that users outside the US can take advantage of it. This undoubtedly is a product stemming from Google’s acquisition of Gizmo5.

I am in Canada and have two gmail accounts. One is tied to a Google Voice account using the method outlined here, and the other doesn’t have a Google Voice account tied to it. I have just enabled the voice call plugin for the gmail account that doesn’t have Google Voice tied to it from Canada, so I can confirm that it works outside the US.

This is a direct shot at Skype. Skype charges $3.95 USD to make unlimited calls to any phone number in Canada and the US. Google just offered this exact same service for free, without the need to use a separate app – it is just a plugin for your browser.

The pop-up notification states “Free calls to the US and Canada in 2010″ so it seems that for now this is temporary, but because Google Voice offers free calls in the US and Canada, it may persist.

I also just tried it with both google accounts and can report the following:

1. If you have a Google Voice account, the caller ID displayed on the receiver’s phone will be your Google Voice number.

2. If you do NOT have a Google Voice account, the caller ID displayed on the receiver’s phone will be some number from California.