You are probably as tired as I am of hearing everyday about some App getting the axe in Apple’s approval process.
In the latest round of rejected iPhone apps was an excellent app that would have made the iPhone so much more powerful for its’s users – GV Mobile.
Intro on GV Mobile & Google Voice
Google Voice is a service by Google that is still in invite only mode. Google bought GrandCentral that introduced the concept of one phone number for a lifetime. After a long time in incubation, Google Voice invites have been going out.
I have had a GrandCentral number since it was in beta and just changed to a local Google Voice number by paying a one-time $10 fee.
GV Mobile is a iPhone App that enables the use of Google Voice right from your iPhone. In fact, this app was approved in person by Phil Schiller (the guy who does Apple conference keynotes) himself and 3 months down the road the app got rejected for reasons like it mimics the iPhone dialer, SMS and such.
And this is an app that is already available in other mobile platforms like Android. Is Apple really telling the developers that you can take your really cool innovation to another mobile platform like Android, Palm, Blackberry, etc.
I have paid little attention to Apple’s rejections so far. But, Google Voice is truly going to change the way we see telephone in a couple of years and it truly is an innovation.
And a smart mobile platform like the iPhone is just going to supercharge that innovation. But to stifle such growth and usability for iPhone users is not really a smart move for Apple.
GV Mobile on Cydia
But, the developer of the rejected GV Mobile App has decided to release his app via Cydia to jailbroken iPhone users for FREE! And I just tried it out.
Here are some screenshots of the GV Mobile app from Cydia.
As you can see, GV Mobile is pretty simple to use. Once you sign in, you can either pull up your contacts to make a call or type in a number to call. Once you hit call, you will get a call from your own Google Voice number and on answering, you will hear the phone you called ring and you will be connected to them. SMS works the same way.
Update: There is however a bug that keeps prompting me to enter my username and password again after a call has ended even though I asked it to remember my username and password.
GV Mobile has just become one other reason for why it is worth jailbreaking an iPhone.
