If you have not signed up and used Google Voice, then you are missing out on an excellent service. I’ve been using gVoice for nearly 2 years now, and I have over 9000 voicemails archived. Yeah – I’ve been busy to say the least.
If you call my iPhone directly through my ATT number or via my Google Voice number, all the calls get routed to Google Voice if I can’t answer. Here are some of the advantages:
- Save ALL your voicemails
- Google Voice app on iPhone works great with push notifications
- TXT alerts available
- Email forwarding of messages
- Can download MP3 copies of the voice mails
- Calling groups/circles
- Custom voice mails for specific numbers (think – I love you for a spouse’s number)
- Can use it for normal text messaging
- Call screening, do not disturb…and much more
Did I mention it’s free? Probably the only negatives about Google Voice are (1) the text transcription is comical at best and (2) the text messaging does not support MMS (pictures/video). However, the text transcription typically will give you enough information to figure out what the call was about.
Google Voice does not replace your existing phone. It is a phone service that can ring multiple phones if you have a cell, home phone, or even multiple cell phones.
The only problem that I had was that Google Voice was not available at first for Google Apps accounts – so I signed up under one of my Gmail accounts. Once it was available as for Google Apps, there was no way to transfer the account. That meant accessing Google Voice meant I had to logout of my SmarterGeek Google Apps account and into my Google Voice or use an Incognito window.
Finally – Google has created a transfer process for Google Voice! You can access the page to get the Google Voice transfer account started here:
I want to transfer my Google Voice number to another account
The process is pretty straightforward, but you have to read quite a bit and agree to the disclaimers. About the only real issue would be if you had multiple Google Voice accounts – and had to replace one.