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.

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…

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 goal of this alliance is “to create a wholesale applications ecosystem that — from day one — will establish a simple route to market for developers to deliver the latest innovative applications and services to the widest possible base of customers around the world. In the immediate future the alliance will seek to unite members’ developer communities and create a single, harmonized point of entry to make it easy for developers to join.”

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/02/15/wireless-carriers-app-store.html?ref=rss#ixzz0fdEEx1P7

The current system of app stores (iPhone App Store, Google Marketplace, BlackBerry App World, Nokia Ovi World) seems to work well for consumers if you are only ever going to stick to one platform. However, what happens when you want to switch phones? Maybe you have an iPhone today, but tomorrow you want to go with an Android-based phone? Or what if your job gives you a BlackBerry? All of your purchased apps are now stuck on the old platform and there’s no way to bring them over, even if the same app is available on your new phone.

The current system is no friend to developers either. If a developer wants to reach the different platforms, they have to code up as many different versions of their app as there are platforms, often in different languages altogether. Different APIs, different rules, different features, and different platforms all need to be accounted for and supported.

Just about the only group that benefits from segregated markets are the established app stores. Forcing users to double-buy means that they get that extra cut  on the extra sale, however this is a double-edged sword. For an established app store like the iPhone’s, it provides user retention – someone who has spent $100 on apps isn’t likely to switch to another platform and lose access to their apps. For up-and-coming app stores it’s a rather sizeable barrier to entry. Why should a user with $100 invested in the app store switch to the new guy?

The app developers do get some benefit as well, receiving double revenues on double sales, however these aren’t expected to be very high, and if they are putting in quadruple the amount of work to develop and support multiple versions of their app, it’s of little benefit.

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.

via @WIND_Chris Lots of interest in #NexusOne: Works on AWS, we’re chatting with them, confirming config works with WIND, more to come…

A few days ago I wrote how the Google Nexus One may be coming to Wind Mobile and now it seems we have some confirmation from Wind themselves that they are in talks to bring the Nexus One to their network and are in the process of determining if the phone will work for them. Stay tuned for updates.

Cellular & Wireless

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.–Google’s first consumer phone has arrived.
You’ve read all the exhaustive coverage of Google’s Nexus One phone over the last month. The Android-based device emerged at a company holiday party and has been the talk of the smartphone industry ever since. And at an event here at its headquarters Tuesday, Google is unveiling the Nexus One and announcing a plan to sell it directly to consumers. (cnet.com)

The phone will be made available through Verizon, T-Mobile, and Vodafone, and can be had for $179 with a contract, or unlocked without a contract for $529. No announcement details for a launch in Canada yet, but it will work on the AWS band, which Wind Mobile currently operates on, and DAVE, Public Mobile, and the big three will also operate on as well.