Google Voice and SMS

[fegul]

Am I missing something? I use Handcent for sms both incoming and outgoing they go through Google Voice and are instant. Is this not normal am I missing something?

Check your txt usage. If those messages are counting as SMS in your plan, it's not going through Google Voice completely.

More here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/voice/thread?tid=19f739f259f48929&hl=en

 

[Gemni69]

Hey Guys, Im new to this whole google voice and was hoping you guys can answer my question. I know that the number i get from google is a number i can give to any one and when they call this number it route to my phone that i have selected on google voice. What i want to know is that on the driod when i dial a number and i select the google voice option. Does that use my minutes or does it use the data plan to call out? I know the person i called get to see my google voice number. Also when i send a txt from my phone do i have a option to send it via google txt number or not? thx.

 

[Silverwing]

When you use google voice, you call a number, and that number calls the person you are trying to reach: So yes, it will use minutes. In fact, if you are calling a Verizon Wireless number through google voice it will cost you minutes and your free mobile-to-mobile will be void because you are talking the google voice number.

 

[Gemni69]

ok. i thought something like that. It just ports the number over. If i call v2v number its best to just call direct from my cell number and only use the GV number when i dont want them to have my cell number. Got it. Is there any application out there that uses the data plan to make calls?

 

[Gemni69]

also another question. Can i have both. A google voice account with my new GV number and google voice with my current cell number so i can have visual voice mail with google? can i have both on 1 number?

 

[Royal2000H]

I disagreee.. I think the background GV app looks for incoming SMSes and maybe emails, and fetches, 406 number or not. There is a slight delay between native SMS and GV notification, depending on wireless connection, which makes me think it fetches rather than parses the SMS

So even though the sms/messaging app doesn't "integrate" with the gv app, the gv app looks for an incoming sms as a trigger

 

[pcandroid]

Corect me if I am wrong but my understanding is that if you add your google voice number to your calling circle it does not use any of your mins. Is that correct? I am looking at my call details on Verizon and I have used no mins since I got google voice. The trick is to put your Google voice number in your circle right?

 

[Silverwing]

It is not a static number, it changes.

 

[romeov]

Ok, well then I'll go halfsies on what I originally said about Google Voice not connecting to other apps and fetching when it sees incoming messages.

As far as Incoming SMS's that are forwarded to your phone instantly as a Verizon text message.. if you do indeed say the GV app updates with it instantly, that I can maybe be swayed to believe that the incoming SMS (that you pay for with your Verizon text messaging plan) does indeed tell the GV app to fetch it as well.

But that sadly is a moot point because the whole point us us wanting instant SMS via Google Voice is to NOT have to pay for a Verizon Text messaging plan each month, and do it entirely through google.. so even though it may work with texts that are forwarded to your phone instantly as a Verizon SMS, that's kind of pointless as you don't even need your GV app for that.. that has worked fine all along. You just have to pay for it.

Now, as far as incoming emails making GV fetch (by forwarding your GV texts to your email) no one can verify that actually working. I set it all up and tried it, and my incoming texts (which came directly to my phone via email now) showed up in my actual GV app on the droid in 5 minutes to 4 minutes, to 7 minutes to 10. No change whatsoever really from before.

So basically I'm really hoping you are all right and the email forwarding trick does somehow make GV fetch, but I tested it, and it failed, can we get like 10 more testers here and finally come to a conclusion? We need some hard data.

 

[Royal2000H]

@romeov: I'm not saying the messaging app notifies GV. I think it's the other way around.

If you go to Settings>Applications>Running Services

You'll see for Google Voice:
CallLogService
UpdateService

Just assuming here, but I would think CallLogService is what tells calls to direct through GV and UpdateService fetches from the GV servers every x minutes.
I also think UpdateService "scans" the phone for an incoming SMS, and when it sees one, it fetches.

I believe this is similar to how "Where's My Droid" works, which waits for the designated keyword in an SMS and then either rings or sends back GPS coordinates.

But like you said, ideally, Google Voice would have push. If anyone from Google is listening, PLEASE add Push to Google Voice.

EDIT:
Just happened to see this on the Google Help Forum!!!

Hi everyone,

We're continuing to look into all of these issues. If others are experiencing the same problems as ruffneckc and Dcplaya, please let me know.


Regarding SMS delays - we realize that the 5 minute refresh interval isn't ideal. I'm happy to let you know that we are starting to work on push notifications for the Android app. We're still in the early stages, but rest assured that we're working on it. As always, when I have updates, I'll post them here.


Thanks for your continued support of GV for Android, and please keep the feedback coming.

-Zeke

Zeke is a Google Employee. Posted 11/30/09

 

[romeov]

@romeov: I'm not saying the messaging app notifies GV. I think it's the other way around.

If you go to Settings>Applications>Running Services

You'll see for Google Voice:
CallLogService
UpdateService

Just assuming here, but I would think CallLogService is what tells calls to direct through GV and UpdateService fetches from the GV servers every x minutes.
I also think UpdateService "scans" the phone for an incoming SMS, and when it sees one, it fetches.

I believe this is similar to how "Where's My Droid" works, which waits for the designated keyword in an SMS and then either rings or sends back GPS coordinates.

But like you said, ideally, Google Voice would have push. If anyone from Google is listening, PLEASE add Push to Google Voice.

EDIT:
Just happened to see this on the Google Help Forum!!!

Hi everyone,

We're continuing to look into all of these issues. If others are experiencing the same problems as ruffneckc and Dcplaya, please let me know.


Regarding SMS delays - we realize that the 5 minute refresh interval isn't ideal. I'm happy to let you know that we are starting to work on push notifications for the Android app. We're still in the early stages, but rest assured that we're working on it. As always, when I have updates, I'll post them here.


Thanks for your continued support of GV for Android, and please keep the feedback coming.

-Zeke

Zeke is a Google Employee. Posted 11/30/09

Royal2000.. You - are awesome.

Not only did you give a polite, concise answer, which made perfect sense with data to back it up.. but then you find a Zeke post saying they are going to start working on push..

You.. made me very h:icon_ banana:appy today sir

 

[Silverwing]

So the question is, how long will it take google to fix this. You would imagine, they could do it very soon, given the fact that GMAIL already pushes so a lot of the code is already there. What do you guys think?

 

[Modulus]

So the question is, how long will it take google to fix this. You would imagine, they could do it very soon, given the fact that GMAIL already pushes so a lot of the code is already there. What do you guys think?

It's not an error they need to fix, it's a feature we'd like them to add.. I'm not trying to split hairs, but there's a slight difference..

GMail relies on IMAP to 'push' email to our phones. MS Exchange does a very similar thing.
Google Voice doesn't use IMAP, because it's not an email client, the current API isn't a 'presence' based system, it's a stateless request-based system. I would say that it's just like a website, because it is a web service.

Web standards dictate that connections are closed after a request is completed.

Think of loading a web page, it loads, then it's done, unless there's code to cause it to reload at some point (thus the 5 minute 'check for messages' timer in the GV App)

Now think of Google Talk, it's a presence based system, so your connection to the server might be idle, but it's persistent. It's always open, listening for data, like a new SMS or VM.

As Google has just acquired Gizmo5, a SIP service, it is very likely that a future version of Google Voice will allow you to register one or more SIP clients to your Google Voice account, then, incoming calls will cause those clients to ring as well.
What SIP/VoIP also offers is the ability to send messages.

Thus, a future version of GV for Android could very easily accept or make calls over 3G/Wifi, as well as send or receive SMS without any delay.
Additionally, you could have multiple cell phones signed onto the same Google Voice account, and they would all ring when the GV# was dialed.

For anyone else using or thinking of using Google Voice, read the FAQ
It's got a lot of good information in it and answers almost all of the questions people are asking here.

romeov, I also tested GMail triggering of GV SMS and determined that in my case, it doesn't trigger a refresh of incoming GV SMS.

To anyone that wants to test something else just for fun:
Configure your GV App to check for new SMS every 15 minutes.
Configure your GV Account to NOT forward SMS to SMS or Email.
Refresh your GV SMS app, then back out of it to the home screen.
Send a txt from some random phone to your GV#
Then, send a txt from some other phone, to your CELL #
See if the GV app fetches the new GV SMS right after, or at the same time as, the txt to your CELL arrives.
Then let us know

 

[Silverwing]

So the question is, how long will it take google to fix this. You would imagine, they could do it very soon, given the fact that GMAIL already pushes so a lot of the code is already there. What do you guys think?

It's not an error they need to fix, it's a feature we'd like them to add.. I'm not trying to split hairs, but there's a slight difference..

I didn't say it was an error. I said they need to fix it. They need to fix it because it is a broken mechanic, since it obviously is inefficient for the user and renders texting to a state of being almost unusable. With that said, adding a mechanic to replace one that does not work well, is fixing the problem.

I'm not trying to split hairs, but there's a point to be made here.

 

[Todd in SD]

"Connection Error" on Incoming Email (IMAP Server)

I am following the exact same incoming/outgoing email settings as others from my corporation (Hewlett-Packard) and I keep getting a "Connection Error" whenever I try to download my corporate email. I can send an email out, but not receive any. I am using the IMAP server settings, SSL (accept all certs), port 993, etc. Any suggestions???

Thanks!
Todd