14 DAY TRIAL // Google Voice has just been made available in the US, which is a great new for everyone as, hopefully, it means that an international launch is not that far off, but the service is still a fraction of what it could be. The next logical step is to integrate it with Google’s existing VoIP services and bypass the phone companies altogether, but for that it’s going to need a soft phone, an application to serve as a Google Voice client for your computer.
Google has been working on just such a thing, it hasn’t confirmed anything, but the desktop application in development is said to have been canceled or at least delayed for the time being. Google has never said anything about the actual app, but TechCrunch has managed to get its hands on a working copy and took it for a spin.
It’s unclear how recent the app itself is, but it is still branded as Gizmo5, the soft phone maker Google acquired late last year. It does say Gizmo5 by Google, however, so it’s definitely a custom build of the software. The app itself has everything you can expect, a phone dialer for ‘punching in’ a number manually, a contacts list that is automatically synced and a call history list.
You can search for a contact in the search box or you can select one directly and then make a regular call using your computer’s microphone and headset or speakers. Since it’s integrated with Google Voice, the person you’re calling will just see your regular name or number and may not even realize you’re talking from your computer.
Unfortunately, as it stands, plans to launch this app to the greater public have been put on hold due to the company’s stance on desktop software. Google is a web company and wants all of its services and apps to be online. A Gmail soft phone is apparently in the works though it seems there are several issues that make this approach problematic, for now.
In the meantime, some Google Voice users have banded together to petition the release of the desktop app. It’s not exactly a massive movement at the moment, but there certainly are a lot of people out there who want the app.
