Hack: use Google Voice to add visual voicemail to your G1, Dream, or Magic
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Jun 29th 2009 1:15PM
posted Jun 29th 2009 1:15PM
First, a quick note: to do this, you'll need a Google Voice account. After many, many months in private beta, Voice is finally starting to loosen up a bit, but it's still not a free-for-all; if you don't have an account, go to voice.google.com right this second and request an invite so that you can get in on this as soon as possible.
To begin, log into your Google Voice account by navigating to voice.google.com. Click on Settings at the top right of the page. If you haven't yet tied your cellphone to your Voice account, you'll want to do that now by clicking on the Phones tab and following the instructions on the screen.
After you've done that, click on the General tab in Settings. This is a good opportunity for you to set up your recorded name and voicemail greeting (they're the third and fourth settings in the list). Google does this by actually calling you and asking you to record them over your phone, just as you would with any other voicemail system -- you don't need a studio-quality mic attached to your PC or anything fancy like that.
The idea behind Google Voice -- better expressed by its former name "Grand Central" -- is that you're given a new phone number that acts as a central clearinghouse for all calls coming into you. In other words, you give out your Google Voice number instead of your landline or your cellphone number, and Google routes the call to you. That's great, but the problem with that plan (assuming you're okay with Google owning your main phone number) is that they're currently not allowing you to port numbers in to the system, which for many folks is a deal-breaker.
That's okay, though, because we're going to effectively use Google Voice backwards. Crazy, right?
"But if I'm not giving out my Google phone number," you're thinking, "why do I need to make sure it doesn't forward to my cellphone when someone calls it?" Good question! The answer is that you'll be calling your Google number yourself. By default, your phone is configured to call a number assigned to you by your carrier if you don't answer, your line's busy, or your out of coverage; this is the number that takes callers' voicemails and plays them back to you when you press and hold the 1 key on your phone.
What you may not have known is that you can change this number to whatever you want! We don't want to use our carrier's lame voicemail system anymore, so we're going to have 'em forward unanswered calls to our Google Voice number instead -- which will go straight to our Google Voice voicemail. Pretty neat, huh?
Now that we have Google Voice itself configured the way we want, we have to set up the proper call forwarding on our phones. Some Android devices have a menu in Settings where you can do this totally painlessly.
If you were unable to find any of these menu items, you'll need to proceed to Plan B -- programming those three call forwarding settings by dialing GSM codes, which AT&T has a good guide on here. These codes are standard across carriers; obviously, your mileage may vary, but they should work.
Good news -- you're almost done! The last piece of the puzzle is to install an app on your phone that'll allow you to access your Google Voice account. Google doesn't have one yet -- which we find a little bizarre -- but in the meantime, there's an excellent third-party substitute in the Android Market called GV. Grab it and install it.
The first time you run GV, you'll be asked to save your Google Voice login and voicemail PIN (make sure you've set this up on the Google Voice site first) so the app can do its thing. You'll also be to configure some settings. For this setup, we recommend that you uncheck "Route all calls through GV," and set "Check for new" to 15 minutes. You can have it check for voicemail more frequently than that if you like, but it'll hasten battery drain a bit.
Pretty cool, huh? The developer of GV warns that Google hasn't released an actual API for developers wanting to code against Google Voice services, so the app cheats a bit by relying on certain HTML elements of the service's mobile site. If you like what you see (and we know we certainly do), be sure to let Google know that you want them to expose an API -- and while they're at it, release an official app!
i would love an invite to google voice if anyone has any to spare :-)
i am addicted to my g1 best phone OS ever IMO :D
They don't allow user invites anymore and haven't for some time. Right now, you just have to wait for Google to respond to your invite request directly. (which can be submitted at www.google.com/voice)
yes google voice is great but as for visual voicemail phonefusion voicemail+ is way better. It's way better than Apple's version too
Google voice is great for cheapos that want to make free calls and send/receive text messages.
I use it for the free business line that's automatically forwarded to my cell phone
The googlevoice app as it is right now is a little bit buggy and I would not rely on it entirely at this point. The only bad thing about voicemail+ is that it uses up text messages. I only have 400
What home screen is that, and whats the circle 'sync' arrow icon in the top left?
someone correct me if i'm wrong ... but i believe that's the google ion from the I/O running on at&t's network ... not quite the same as t-mo
I have an I/O Conference version of the Ion and my lock screen definitely doesn't look like that.
if it's not the ion then the only other thing is a rooted build or even possibly hero ROM ... but if it is the Hero Rom then that sync is the exchange sync? ... and the task bar is supposed to be black ... i dunno ... def looks nothing like the g1 ...
It looks like the Dude's cupcake off XDA
YouMail pretty much does the same thing, no?
Yep, and does it quite well.
What about PF Voicemail? That's been up on the app store for months.
I love PF vvm. Although it's nice to have everything tie in together, PF looks WAY better than this does so far. I don't doubt Google will make it shine some day, but for now, PF gets my money (or not, b/c it's free).
I like the concept, just don't like google having my phone number.
Android is doing a wonderfull job of becoming an alternative choice for me and my extensive use of WinMo.
I really would like for ATT to get some Android phones soon. Playing with my friends phones, i like the interface. A complete sync with Microsoft Outlook and Exchange is the other requirement for me.
Like most of the super-cool features on Android, Outlook Exchange sync is already available in the form of a third party application (there are multiple developers offering similar solutions, if I'm not mistaken).
You can get that with NitroDesk.com's Touchdown for Exchange. It's great.
I would be careful with this. Some carriers charge per minute for call forwarding, with long distance on top of that as well.
You are definitely right about this. As far as I know, only T-Mobile is really cool about this. They allow for 500 non-conditional call forwarding minutes per month if you are on a normal plan, but now that I'm on the unlimited plan it's unlimited forwarding.
This is great.. how does one get an invite? Been staring at the coming soon page for MONTHS.
This is better than PF Voice Mail for ONE BIG reason....Transcribing of the voicemail. That way you can copy/paste comethign from the voice mail into a E-mail and more. THANK YOU Engadgetmobile.com!
PF Voicemail+ has been my voicemail app of choice since I got my phone, tho this might work pretty cool. might try it out. Best thing about PF Voicemail is it doesn't have a check interval, it just sends you a text message (if you have unlimited messages) and then the app checks for new messages. Its worked pretty seamlessly for myself.
Also, I'm more interested in the different lock screen you have up there, What is that?
can anyone tell me if this will work with doing it on a cdma blackberry storm? i know it's not android, but it seems like in theory it should work on any platform.
Anyone got an invite that they'd like to send my way :)
I have been waiting for this for months. Some one please send me an invite. wlamb07@gmail.com
-Gmail
-G1
Could this possibly work for those of us on iPhones using T-Mobile? I know visual voicemail is just 1 feature I'm missing by using T-Mo, seems as though this could alleviate that
It looks like there's nothing Android-specific about this solution except for the Google Voice application that feeds you the voicemail notifications. If there is an iPhone app for Google Voice that has push notifications, then just substitute that part of the tutorial and it will probably work fine.
Apparently GV can just text you a transcription of your voicemail, and you can just set them up on speed dial when you want to actually listen, so you could pretty much do this without an app at all, as long as you can forward your calls.
-Taylor
Yeah, PF voicemail has been around a long time.
Overall good article but fail cause there are apps on the market place that can do this already.
We're not suggesting that this is new -- we're laying down a reference for folks who want to tie Google Voice into their Android phone. That's all.
This looks all kinds of cool, but it seems like it would be a lot more useful if I was the type of person who has ever had more than one voicemail at a time. Still, the transcribed text version of the voicemail is a pretty cool feature. I'll give this a shot once my GV invite comes through.
Chris, this is easy to set up on any phone, without going through the G1 menu and without installing an app.
There's a single code you can type in to forward all busy / no answer / unreachable calls to Google Voice.
Instructions: http://skydeck.com/help/voicemail/forward-phone-google-voice
To check your voicemail, just put Google Voice on speed dial. And you can get alerts and transcriptions by SMS and/or email, so why do you need a client?
We recommend this to all users of Skydeck so that they can get their voicemails into Skydeck at no extra cost. (Plug: our free service lets you track all of your cell phone calls and text messages online without changing your phone number or changing the way you make phone calls.)
SpaceGoatPriest: as far as we know, only Sprint charges for conditional call forwarding. All carriers charge by the minute when people leave voicemail for you, so this doesn't add anything. And I don't believe that any cell phone carrier in the US charges a premium for domestic long distance anymore.
Best
Jason
Correction: MetroPCS and Cricket charge a premium for long distance calls on their cheapest plans.
Yes, there are some well known 3rd party voicemail providers out there (I personally use youmail which just released a visual voicemail app for android) but the point of the article was about setting it up with GV's visual voicemail app.
Note for you iphone users: considering the GV android app was written by a 3rd party and not google, it is theoretically possible for it to be ported to the iphone, but don't expect to be seeing it in the appstore, it would be something for jailbreak.
The app is plenty useful, that way you don't have to call your voicemail to get the message, hence the visual voicemail. I can also delete the voicemail without calling my voicemail, making me *almost* not hate it when people leave me voicemails.
I am contemplating buying an unlocked htc magic from ebay or amazon and the deal breaker for me would be the updates. Would I receive the android os updates on an unlocked htc magic or hero international version or otherwise when I go onto a wireless connection? A lot of forums are saying that t-mobile pushes the updates to their android phones. Would I receive the updates even though I would be using the at&t 3g iphone network? Any kind of help would be appreciated.
You probably wouldn't get the updates automatically, as I know unlocked G1 owners on ATT don't, but there are better sources of updates anyway, like xda-developers.com.
-Taylor
Um, I have a developers phone (basically an unlocked g1) and I get updates on the AT&T network.
Nevertheless, I still get my ROMs from XDA
I set this up on my G1, thanks!
The main "Con" is it seems to take 2 or 3 more rings to get to voicemail than the standard T-Mobile voicemail, no biggie.
The app is most useful for hearing the voicemail and being able to delete it on your phone. Otherwise Google Voice texts me and emails me when someone leaves a VM, along with the transcript (very helpful).
You don't really need to set the Check for New for every 15 min. Google Voice sends you an email right when you get a new voice mail. So that could be a better way to know u have a new voice mail, without having to drain the battery from the app checking so many times a day.
On Sprint, this gets very expensive. I have a GV account and a Sprint Vogue (aka HTC Touch Gen1) and would love to keep my current phone number and use GV message handling/transcription. The problem is, Sprint wants to charge $0.20/minute for forwarding "forward when busy" and "forward when no answer". AFAIK there's no free method to send incoming calls to GV if you're with Sprint.
Since it hasn't been addressed in the article or in the comments yet, does AT&T charge a fee for forwarding these calls?
No AT&T does not. I have been using PF visual voicemail since getting my G1 about four months ago. It also forwards your number, and I have never been charged and get hundreds of voicemails a month.
G1 and Dream are the same device.
I get Call settings Error "unexpected response from network". Is there a way you suppose to enter it. VM: +15550000000, or +15550000000, or 15550000000, or 5550000. iv'e tried every way, and i get the same error message every time.
Yes, you can get the core features from Phonefusion or youmail. I had this setup but GV's limitations (like you cannot choose to play VM on speaker or handset etc) made me switch back to Phone fusion.
Hey guys, developer of the GV app here. If any of you have any questions or anything, feel free to send me an email and I'll see what I can do to help. gv {at} evancharlton {dot} com
No, I do not have any invitations. Please do not ask.
Ugh, why won't AT&T hurry up with their 3G Android phones?! I'm ready to trade my iPhone 3G in! Unless, of course, we somehow get Android on *it*...
SWEEET
Can someone confirm whether this is available in Europe or not?
Thanks
Can I get an Invite... owiafeab@gmail.com
please send me an invite
e.robertladouceur@gmail.com
Does anyone own an unlocked htc magic international version or the developers version of the phone from the google I/O conference? I would just like to know if I will receive the android updates ota over wifi or if I will not? If I won't be able to receive the updates when using the at&t iphone 3g network then I won't buy the phone. Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated. T-mobile is pushing the updates to the G1's and some say that they are receiving it over wifi on at&t's network on an unlocked G1. Again any kind of help would be greatly appreciated.