Google Voice on Blackberry Bold

I signed up for Google Voice this week to see what all the talk about was. I had heard rumors that AT&T was going to block Google Voice and I thought that was the case when I tried to download from my phone and the web address kept giving me a weird error but finally it worked. I got a number with a 314 area code and the last 4 digits are the same as my current cell number which is a plus.

Features

This is a hot app because it allows you to bypass your phone carrier’s bill. What I mean by this is that you could totally cancel your text messaging plan and have people send you texts over your new number via your data plan or WiFi. The same works for your voice plan so you could have the lowest voice plan available. The other big features are that you get a rising credit for international calls (which I don’t understand yet) plus you have visual voicemail.

Below is the list of the complete features.

• A single Google number for all user’s phones
• Free calls and SMS in the contiguous US
• Calling International phone numbers for as low as 0.01 USD per minute
• Call screening. Announce callers based on their number or by an automated identification request for blocked numbers
• Listen in on someone recording a voicemail before taking a call
• Block calls
• Send, receive, and store SMS online
• Answer an incoming call on any of your phones
• Phone routing. Choose which phones should ring based on who calls
• Forwarding phones
• Voicemail transcripts. Read voicemails online and on my BB
• Listen to voicemail online or from a phone
• Receive notifications of voicemails via email or SMS
• Personalized greeting that varies greetings by caller
• The ability to forward or download voicemails.
• Conference calling
• Record calls and store them online
• Switch phones during a call
• View the web inbox from a mobile device/phone
• Set preferences for contacts by group

Here is the main screen. The purple dots are text messages and the blue dots are voicemails. I left myself a couple voicemails and I never got the text to read exactly right but it was close. I could not get it to show the users names like above even though they are in my BB address book.

Making a call or text does take another step so not sure I would use it as it is now. I am use to just start typing a name and it automatically goes to my address book where I can then click the Blackberry button to choose the option to text, email, or call. This app does not allow you do this. To get it to do this you, you have to (1) be in the app and click the Blackberry button (2) select address book (3) scroll to the person you want (4) then you get the options above to call and SMS using Google Voice. I am not sure why it is not directly integrated into the address book but shows up when you initiate through the app. I have a similar problem with sending a picture through Twitterberry.

I do receive texts and calls along with sending texts but I can not get the outbound calling to work. I keep calling my office phone and it rings and rings and rings. I did also notice that voicemails take a couple minutes to show up on my phone where they show up immediately online. I also do like that it says my name when you call my Google number from an outside line. It is a very neat feature that I see all carriers doing. It basically would stop you early from continuing a call if you dialed the wrong number.

In summary, below are my big advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages

• Basically free texts and calls
• Visual text voicemails

Disadvantages

• Does not have native commands built into the Blackberry menu
• Is not directly tied to my address book so it only shows numbers in the inbox instead of names. Not sure how the above picture shows names.