Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
imessage and google voice
- Thread starter jvmxtra
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Just wondering.. How do you not have a texting plan? Aren't they required when you're on contract (assuming you are on one).
What do you mean? I have verizon and they let me cancel all texting plan so I ONLY use google voice..
----------
My phone is coming tomorrow so I will play w/ them to see if this is possible but I cannot believe nobody here has tried or complain about lack of(or maybe there is a way?) integrating gvoice w/ iMessage.
I have thus problem also but I'm not surprised. Why would AT&T or Apple go out of their way to make this work? I'm sure there will be a jailbreak eventually.
I haven't tried this, sounds plausible. If you're with Sprint (I'm sorry you're with VZW)
You can first set your Sprint number to use Google Voice as explained here, from there when you get your iPhone 4S (or any device with iOS 5) it should seamlessly work with iMessage as well. So it goes out iMessage when you text other iOS 5 users then if not, it goes through your Google Voice integration with Sprint.
You can first set your Sprint number to use Google Voice as explained here, from there when you get your iPhone 4S (or any device with iOS 5) it should seamlessly work with iMessage as well. So it goes out iMessage when you text other iOS 5 users then if not, it goes through your Google Voice integration with Sprint.
OK, so finally got iPhone 4s friday and loving it so far.
UNfortunately, combination of freaking gvoice crashing every time(I was already sick of POS gvoice anyway) and imessage's default behavior to fall back to reg sms when iMessage fails(for whatever reason), I decide to activate the full unlimited txt message for the whole family.($30 bucks)..
I will do this till if/when 3rd party free text system can be plugged into iMessage. I do love the iMessage..
UNfortunately, combination of freaking gvoice crashing every time(I was already sick of POS gvoice anyway) and imessage's default behavior to fall back to reg sms when iMessage fails(for whatever reason), I decide to activate the full unlimited txt message for the whole family.($30 bucks)..
I will do this till if/when 3rd party free text system can be plugged into iMessage. I do love the iMessage..
Don't use the official GV app right now. It's crashing all the time. I find GV connect to be more reliable until GV is patched for iOS 5.
And no, you can't set up imessage to use your GV number. However it seems a jailbreak can solve this, if iOS 5 has been jailbroken already.
GV is also pretty useless with Siri as you can't tell Siri to make a call using your GV number either.
koo.. thanks for the advise.. for now, will stick to real text plan using iMessage.
Personally I like Google Voice Mobile+ for Google Voice. As far as your problem, I don't think Apple will integrate Google Voice with iMessage. I highly doubt it.
Depends where you're from. I've never seen a plan with 'no texting' in Canada...at least none that also had Data
As far as I know, the only way you'll be able to use Voice as a fallback is to give yourself native google voice integration - which will require jail breaking.
I'm jail broken and have Phone GV and SMS GV extensions. It'll route all calls and texts through the native phone and SMS app to google voice.
I'm jail broken and have Phone GV and SMS GV extensions. It'll route all calls and texts through the native phone and SMS app to google voice.
I will never consider jailbreaking my device. It's almost like using some other crappy manufacturer's phone in an Apple body. Ugly apps, ugly implementation, Apple-unaproved hence ugly. Everything is just ugly, appalling and plain not right about jailbreaking.
I'm in the same situation as OP, and here's my solution:
I'm text-plan-free, give out only my GV number to people, so that when they text me, I'm not charged a penny. I use Apple's native text app solely for iMessaging with other iOS 5 users. Just set your called ID to an email address and people will never find out your real carrier phone number.
I'm in the same situation as OP, and here's my solution:
I'm text-plan-free, give out only my GV number to people, so that when they text me, I'm not charged a penny. I use Apple's native text app solely for iMessaging with other iOS 5 users. Just set your called ID to an email address and people will never find out your real carrier phone number.
I use GV as my primary number. When you call someone or they text you, it gives you a random number from a random area code that is tied to that person from any of your phones. Example: if John texts my GV number and I have it set to forward via text I see it as 999-999-9999 even though Johns real number is 111-111-1111. I save both in Johns contact and when I text him, he sees my GV number. This solves your issue of texting in the stock messaging app. I've been doing it for years. I store the 999 number as mobile to make it easier and their real number (111) as another category.
Unfortunately, no way to mask iMessage so I put my email as my caller ID so people don't get confused by my real number.
Unfortunately, no way to mask iMessage so I put my email as my caller ID so people don't get confused by my real number.
The method I mention above storing the fake number provided by GV also allows you to text and call someone using GV though Siri and car integration as an FYI.
Does anyone else have further information (not conjecture) about this? I love Google Voice and would like to be able to use my Google Voice number through iMessage, but obviously I that is not the case. I do not want to jailbreak my phone, but I'm also on the fence about giving my email address out for iMessaging. The whole point of Google Voice in the first place was "one phone number for everything."
This is the way I use Google Voice:
1. GV is my voicemail for my ATT iPhone account. When someone calls my mobile number and I don't pick up, it goes to my GV voicemail. At which point, I get an email and a text alert that someone left a voicemail.
2. I give out my GV tel. number along with my mobile number and ask people to text me at that number. It's not usually a problem, and if someone texts me at the wrong number, I just reply using the GV app and we carry on our conversation that way. Since i don't have a text plan, this can cost me 20 cents a text. I used to pay for the $5/200 txt plan, but realized that I never used more than 5-10 messages a month so I canceled it.
I don't use Google Voice as a complete replacement for my mobile number because I do not care for the reduced voice quality of calls. Mobile phone calls are difficult enough to hear, passing it through GV gave me very robot like, low volume calls. I could tell a difference so I decided to forget it and just keep using ATT direct for voice calls. BTW, Verizon voice quality is much better. I notice how much more natural people sound when I use my sister's Verizon iPhone.
I am still looking for ways to integrate iMessage. I probably will not really use it as much as I would like because I really like the ability to send text messages from my Gmail account, another benefit to using Google Voice for texting. That is such a huge benefit that I am willing to forgo the prettier more friendly and less buggy Messages app. From what I have used, iMessages is a very slick system. It feels more responsive than standard text messaging. I feel like there is a real conversation happening. Also, sometimes with text messaging you get odd behavior when you text with people on different networks or on different devices (Blackberries). Sometimes texts get broken up and sent in the wrong order. I imagine stuff like that wouldn't happen with iMessages.
1. GV is my voicemail for my ATT iPhone account. When someone calls my mobile number and I don't pick up, it goes to my GV voicemail. At which point, I get an email and a text alert that someone left a voicemail.
2. I give out my GV tel. number along with my mobile number and ask people to text me at that number. It's not usually a problem, and if someone texts me at the wrong number, I just reply using the GV app and we carry on our conversation that way. Since i don't have a text plan, this can cost me 20 cents a text. I used to pay for the $5/200 txt plan, but realized that I never used more than 5-10 messages a month so I canceled it.
I don't use Google Voice as a complete replacement for my mobile number because I do not care for the reduced voice quality of calls. Mobile phone calls are difficult enough to hear, passing it through GV gave me very robot like, low volume calls. I could tell a difference so I decided to forget it and just keep using ATT direct for voice calls. BTW, Verizon voice quality is much better. I notice how much more natural people sound when I use my sister's Verizon iPhone.
I am still looking for ways to integrate iMessage. I probably will not really use it as much as I would like because I really like the ability to send text messages from my Gmail account, another benefit to using Google Voice for texting. That is such a huge benefit that I am willing to forgo the prettier more friendly and less buggy Messages app. From what I have used, iMessages is a very slick system. It feels more responsive than standard text messaging. I feel like there is a real conversation happening. Also, sometimes with text messaging you get odd behavior when you text with people on different networks or on different devices (Blackberries). Sometimes texts get broken up and sent in the wrong order. I imagine stuff like that wouldn't happen with iMessages.