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.

The Boy Genius Report posted a story on a desktop app for Google Voice, and TechCrunch posted a video of it in operation. Branded as Gizmo5 by Google, the application ran on OSX, and allowed full Google Voice functionality, even appearing as a handset in the Google Voice control panel online.

While this is not so much a mobile app, it does show some integration of Gizmo5, the VOIP company that Google bought last year.

Apparently Google doesn’t want to develop many standalone apps, instead preferring web or “cloud” applications, so there’s no word if this program will make it out for us regular users to use.

Is anyone else having similar issues?

Update: Maybe it isn’t an issue. I just logged in to my google voice account and tried to add a 403 number as a forwarding phone. It seemed to work fine as it asked me to go through the verification process. When I try with my 778 number it gives me an error that international numbers are not supported and doesn’t get to the verification process.

First, you’ll need a Skype account, of course. That’s free. Then you need to download and install the Skype software.

Next, go to the Skype Features page, and sign up to make outgoing, conventional phone calls using Skype. You can buy credits in increments of $10, or just pay for monthly services, starting at $2.95 per month for unlimited calling in the US and Canada.

Next, go to the Account page, and click Caller ID. There, you can set any of your phone numbers as the Caller ID number seen by the people you call using Skype. Enter your Google Voice number. Skype will send an SMS with a verification code to Google Voice. Enter that verification code into the Skype Caller ID Web page, and you’re done. Skype says it takes 24 hours to activate.

It seems as though the integration of gizmo5 into Google Voice is steadily progressing, taking one more step last week. The gizmo5.com domain was transferred to google on 18 January 2010, and now gizmo5.com redirects to google.com/gizmo5.

Gizmo5 was a VOIP company which provided both software and a service which allowed users to make VOIP calls. Similar to the popular skype-in/skype-out service offered by Skype, gizmo5 allowed users to register a phone number to attach to their gizmo5 software or device for the purposes of receiving calls, and allowed users to use the service to make cheap calls out to regular phone numbers.

Back in November of 2009, google acquired gizmo5, adding the missing piece to google’s telecommunications services.

It looks as though google’s intentions are to incorporate gizmo5′s VOIP capabilities with google voice’s services to provide a full VOIP service on its Android devices. This means one could have a fully functioning phone through google on only a data plan – no voice plan would be required. Furthermore, due to google voice’s cheap long distance rates, one could conceivably get unlimited talk and text in North America on just a data plan.

Looks like a dialer

The app is now live and is available at http://m.google.com/voice. Google previously had a web-based interface for google voice which worked, but was not quite as intuitive. This html5 version brings almost all of the functionality of a native app on the iPhone.

And there’s nothing Apple can really do about it.

The buttons in the web app all respond as one would expect in a native app. Dialing is quick and intuitive with little to no delay.

Navigation between screens is simple when using the nav bar at the top and allows you to switch between your voicemail/sms inbox, the dialer, the sms writing page, google contacts, and settings.

To qualify the italic “almost” above, it should be mentioned that the difference lies in how you manage and access your contacts.

On the iPhone, the phone dialer has direct access to your phone’s contact list. The web app does not have such access, but it does have access to your google contacts. Getting a seamless integration of your iPhone’s contacts with google voice requires the extra step of syncing your iPhone contact list with google. As can be seen from the screenshots, I have not yet done this.

Bravo to google for giving us a usable google voice interface on the iPhone.

[View with PicLens]

Okay not really, but it must feel this way to Sean Kovacs, the developer of the iPhone app GV Mobile, a pretty slick Google Voice interface for the iPhone. If you happened to be one of the lucky few who got to use GV Mobile when it was on sale (me!), you’ll also be one of the unlucky few who experienced the removal of the app by Apple. I had to restore my iPod and lost GV Mobile completely, unable to re-download it from Apple and with it my ability to send free SMS messages easily.

Well, Sean has re-written GV Mobile and has gotten it approved by Apple. This is all very recent, with GV Mobile still not appearing in the app store for me.

1. January 15th – GV Mobile sent to Apple
2. January 16th – GV Mobile released on Cydia
3. January 19th – GV Mobile approved on the app store

Details on price/upgrades/features and usability will follow once I get my hands on the app, so stay tuned for that. In the future, Sean intends to include push notifications, which would be a nice addition.

Astute reader @ianmurchison noticed something interesting:

It has been known for a while now that google has acquired Gizmo5, a VOIP company which has the ability to place and terminate calls to standard phone numbers. The acquisition gave google the piece it needed to start offering full VOIP service. With the switch to a $0.02 per minute charge for google voice calls to Canada – the same that Gizmo5 charged – we could be looking at the incorporation of Gizmo5′s VOIP abilities into google voice.

It shouldn’t be long now until google starts offering full VOIP service.