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:

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.