Google's new Voice and Call Phones applications will challenge major telecommunications carriers' pricing models and undoubtedly will change the way people buy telecommunications services in the future. Google is offering free long distance, free voice mail, and free call forwarding to anyone in the US with a computer and a phone.
And the products work. I've installed Google's new Voice or "Call phones" app on three devices: a PC with Windows 7, an iPhone 4, and a MacBook Pro. It was easy to install on the two computers and a little trickier on the iPhone.
Regarding installing on the mobile -- note that I had to allow the phone to accept cookies, and had to set up my cell number in Google Voice on the PC before it would work on the iPhone. See recent how-to article for PC installation.
The Google app lets me make calls from the computers to any telephone without requiring the person at the other end to have Google software.
Google Voice also keeps a log of the calls, offers easily accessible voice mail, and handles call forwarding, all visible from either computer. I haven't used Google successfully to make a call from the iPhone, but the iPhone already has all these features, whereas the computers didn't, before.
Pricing: The apps are free for 2010. Using them for calls within the US, and from the US to Canada is free for 2010; rates to call other locations are low; see this Google page.
Availability: Right now these apps works in the US only. They will be available in more countries in the future -- see this article: Google phone service handles over 1 million calls on Day One.
Google applications are available to Clevelanders via any internet access method -- begin at www.google.com.
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Links to other worthwhile articles:
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Motorola-Droid-compared-to iPhone and Blackberry Torch.
Amazon.com sells Blackberry Torch for half AT&T price.
Older related articles:
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Comments
If may work but I think it dropped one of my calls yesterday.
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