This past week, after waiting years, I was graced with a Google Voice invite. I immediately set it up to use my new number as a forward to my iPhone. Things were looking good and I was adjusting the settings within GV so I could avoid little annoyances such as SMS messages being forwarded etc, when I started to wonder what developers had already done with the technology (after all it had been in existence awhile as GrandCentral). So I found two apps on the iPhone App Store that would dial out, playback voicemails, send and view SMS messages, and a few more common things. One of the big features I found missing was the ability to receive calls through the apps. One may think this is no big deal, but considering that I live on a campus without a strong GSM cellular signal I need all the help I can get! Fortunately I found a solution…
While exploring an App idea of mine I stumbled upon a website/service I had signed up for years ago called Gizmo5. Gizmo is a SIP service. Without getting technical this is pretty much like any VOIP where a
user can make calls to other VOIP users or to outside lines for a small price. However I found out that Google Voice will allow you to forward to your Gizmo line. After a little searching I found a few apps for the iPhone that
would let me make and receive calls with my Gizmo account. To cut things short I found that TruPhone was the best
option out of fring and NimBuzz due to its ability to use the numeric pad. However to use
TruPhone you have to forward once more. So sign up for TruPhone and then go into the settings of Gizmo and put forwarding to “Forwarding all calls” and set it to go to yourAccountName@truphone.com (put your account name in where it says “yourAccountName”). This way you’ll be able to receive calls within the TruPhone app when using Wifi.
Now you will want to go into your GV settings and verify that Gizmo number while you have TruPhone open. hopefully the phone will start buzzing and you can enter in your verification code.
After that you are set to receive GV calls on Wifi!
…However I wanted to go a little farther. If you are like me I’m pretty sure you won’t want to leave your phone on one application most of the time anticipating a call. That is why I wanted to take advantage of push notification. Now unfortunately the most obvious solution is not there… TruPhone does not send notifications for calls coming in.
What I decided to do was start up a second Gizmo account and forwarded that to one of my gmail accounts (after going through the verification like with the first account). What this will do for me is send me a message in Google Talk (or chat in gmail) requesting I answer the call within the app. However for what I am doing I just want that message sent as soon as a calls coming in. So with your favorite push chat app (Beejive for me!) for iPhone setup you GTalk or gmail account and make a test call with the app open. You will have to verify the senders before you can exit the app and wait for pushes. Once you are ready to go close the app and have a friend give you a call.
As soon as you see that notification press “close” and open up TruPhone. Wait a second for the app to open and then it will start ringing. Pick up the phone and you are in business!
If you would like to place a call when outside of your cellular network but in a Wifi area use GV Mobile or the lite version to dial out and then immediately open TruPhone.
One of the best things about this method is that when on a college campus that is blanketed in Wifi (like I will be my senior year) it is not even necessary to use an iPhone. If I had an iPod touch and a headset I would be set!
Ideally I would like to see TruPhone add Push notification for incoming calls or Beejive to include SIP services so I can run Gizmo within that. For now this will do and I’ll be saving money on calls!
Feel free to leave comments if you found this useful or have found a better way of achieving the same results!
I think you might find this solution to be impractical due to the large amount of latency you’re adding to an already latent GV phone call. Also, push is something that works over 3G, not WiFi. When your phone is sleeping, it disconnects from the WiFi network shortly after falling asleep.
As I said it is a workaround… it is by no means ideal! However I have run through tests with it and it seems to work fine. If you were to use this workaround and have a jailbroken phone there is a app called 3g unrestricted that tricks your phone into thinking any data connection is a Wifi one. This allows you to call via this method regardless of where you are. However I wouldn’t trust it by anymeans in the GPRS trenches of Decorah. Latency isnt out of the ordinary due to the way gizmo works.
Now, now, Decorah has full blown EDGE, not just GPRS.
iPhone and Google voice is superb combination and threat for Truphone, Skype or Vopium. Let see how they react in response of google voice..
Yeah… that will be interesting. I don’t foresee them doing anything to par with google, but hey you never know.