MetroTalk is our go-to app for all things Google Voice, a service which we need due to having so many phones and SIM cards (plus that free text messaging is a nice bonus). Earlier this week we saw Google make some API changes, resulting in a critical login failure for this and other Google Voice clients on Windows Phone.
Version 3.2 just went live in the Store and we can verify that it is indeed up and working just as expected. The new version also has a few bug fixes in there to make it quite a worthy update.
3.2 changelog
- Critical: Connectivity errors which had made the app unusable now been resolved
- Bug fix: Conversations with the same contact no longer breaks into multiple threads
- Bug fix: The background update agent no longer gets disabled randomly
- Various other fixes and updates
That third fix is quite vital too as we have seen the app fail to get updates a few times recently (but when combined with the Lumia 920s firmware bug, it was hard to separate).
Google Voice, not to be confused with Google’s messenger app Chat, was originally a private service called Grand Central, but was bought by Google in 2007. It’s goal was to give one phone number to users that can then call all of their phones—LAN or cell—in one go. In practice that means when we have our three Windows Phones on us (Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T), all three devices will ring simultaneously. In addition, users can text message anyone for free since this messages are routed over data, not cellular.
It's also a bit fun since you can make outgoing calls with a different phone number and even pick your locale (ours is D.C.). It's great for protecting privacy as you can always ditch your Google Voice number and protect your real numbers from people you don't trust.
Although Google won’t give us any official apps, we’re lucky to have MetroTalk as it not only fills the gap, but does it very well too.
Pick up MetroTalk here in the Windows Phone Store. Thanks, Dino F., for the tip!
