wifitalk.ca » gv mobile

GV Mobile+ Approved

george — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 22:38:59 +0000

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.

GV Mobile Plus Screenshots

george — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:44:49 +0000

Sean has posted some screenshots of GV Mobile+ on his iPhone. He just submitted the app to Apple for review, so hopefully we’ll have a Google Voice app on the iOS platform in a few days.

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:

GV Mobile To Re-Appear In The App Store

george — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:01:31 +0000

“Good news everyone! Several years ago I tried to log on to AOL, and it just went through! Wheee! We’re online!”
―Farnsworth

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.

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.

GV Mobile / MaRussia as a Google Voice Replacement

george — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:40:26 +0000

Sean Kovacs, the developer of the previously-on-the-app-store GV Mobile, has been hard at work lately on a new project.

After developing GV Mobile, an app for the iPhone which allows near seamless integration and access to google voice, Sean became one of the growing number of developers to become intimately familiar with Apple’s less than developer-friendly approval process for apps. Despite being approved for the app store, and appearing there for some time, Apple pulled the app and suspended sales. Why exactly is still a matter of discussion, but one thing appears certain – GV Mobile won’t re-appear on the app store.

More details after the break.

Sean has since released GV Mobile on Cydia, the free app store for jailbroken iPhones, and GV Mobile has continued in development, with a small number of users doing beta testing. While the Cydia version works, one of the key features to be implemented – push notifications – require that the app be used through Apple’s regular channels. Push notifications would allow an incoming call to your google voice number to be pushed to the GV Mobile app on your iPhone even when the program isn’t running. This means you could receive the call through GV Mobile without having to keep the app running continuously. Push notifications do not work if you don’t go through Apple, so the Cydia version of the app will always lack some functionality.

I had a feeling that Sean would continue to work towards a google voice related app for the app store. It looks like that feeling wasn’t misplaced.

Sean posted a few tweets on his twitter account this morning that highlighted what he has been up to lately:

I contacted Sean for some comments, and understandably, he wants to keep the details under wraps until he gets the app approved and things start rolling, but a google voice-esque feature set would be a pretty useful app. Expect some more information soon.

He DID answer one question though: Canadian numbers should be supported in the future.