Sean Kovacs

For Push, try using Growl (or Growl for Windows). Downside you need a computer that is only on.

Sean: anyway you can integrate a growl feature for GV mobile… have the user “host” their own push server basically?

I was just wondering, would this allow me to send and receive text messages inside the app without any charges from at&t? I dont mind opening up the app to get notified, but i just wish to get texts from other people to my google voice number. This is my top priority right now.

Also, we should try to get Google to upload their own google voice app on cydia for people to enjoy.

@tehElite – yeah thats what GV Mobile is all about. It does exactly what you just described….top priority + GV Mobile = Resolved.

Thanks for taking a shot at the Pre version!

-Dave

@mula i know that google voice will let me get free texts.
but i am talking about the app. I think I remember reading GV Mobiles description when it was in the app store, and it said that i can send texts for free, but i would get charged when receiving them. I was just wondering if this was changed in the cydia version or not.

@tehElite

nope…neva did or do you now get charged for sending txt’s out of GV Mobile. Free text is what makes it a great app ENJOY

First, let me say, great app! Out of all the ridiculousness on Apple’s part regarding the app store, this is the first one that really got me upset. Frankly, if jailbreaking weren’t possible, I’d be looking at other phones/networks right now. Thanks for throwing this on Cydia; it’s definitely the right move to really stick it to Apple and show them how short-sighted they are being.

On a side note, my GV Mobile icon sits a little lower than the other icons on my phone (the bottom of the icon is closer to the label text than other apps). Is there any fix for this?

….or receiving txt’s to your Google Voice number. Just like you said you just need to open to app for it to refresh to receive your incoming txt’s.

I currently have a makeshift “push” system setup utilizing and app called Prowl. It’s designed to be used to with Growl on your computer, but has an API to be used with anything. There are even great links to implementations in just about any language you’d want to code it in on the Prowl site. Prowl is $3 in the app store.

There’s also a Google Voice “API” wrapper written in php. I merged the two together in about 45 minutes. My script checks Google Voice every 60 checking for new messages. When it finds one, it Prowls my phone, and I open GV Mobile to see it. It’s not perfect but, for those with a little scripting knowledge can whip something up pretty easily.

If anyone is interested, please let me know, and I’ll write something up.

By the way Sean, thanks for keeping it going. I bought it a few days ago and have no regrets. Jailbroke my phone a couple days back too; the timing is uncanny

Sean, add the offline dialing.

@sudopeople Are you doing anything different from the others using growl? ie are you leaving your computer on all day?

Just downloaded through Cydia….I had totally forgotten about it’s presence in the AppStore through all the hype of the possible Google written app, and then it’s explicit rejection…:-(.

Your app is, however, great. Two thumbs way up!

On a side note, think your Google Fu could do a Latitude app?

Yay. Nice Job Sean. I second the offline dialing.

This whole thing is so infuriating: Apple’s f**ing with its customers and developers, very bad for a company that lives or dies on loyalty. But it also seems pretty clear what happened: ATT threatened contract action if Apple kept GV apps in the store. Presumably their contract specified something about non-competing telephone apps. Apple likely can’t speak about this as part of its agreement with ATT. Nevertheless, it’s stupid as hell. These services can be gotten on the Web, albeit with somewhat less functionality than with a dedicated app like yours. Similar case with Google Latitude. So ATT and Apple are just pissing off customers and developers for no good reason.

To be honest, I don’t really mind the lack of push, at least for alerting me about new voicemails, because I’ve set Google Voice to send me an SMS when a new one arrives. Works fine.

That said, what I’d REALLY like for GV Mobile to add, is the ability to read the full voicemail transcription. This is a key and killer feature of Google Voice.

VoiceCentral has this but I prefer the UI (and Cydia-availability) of GV Mobile.

Please add Voice Transcriptions… perhaps as an “arrow” next to each voicemail… I know all of your eager users would appreciate it.

@mula thanks! im gonna start using google voice now! i was a little hesitant because of the texting. thanks for clearing it up for me! im just testing it out with one of my friends right now, and its confirming ur response. thanks man!

@sudopeople can you please send me the script at omgitsjapan@gmail.com? Or please host it online somewhere? I would also like to know how much battery would it use if i had it set to check every 5 minutes or every minute?

@sean
Heh, I was just making the idea known….I didn’t mean to sound rushing or anything.

Also Sean, please add the ability to filter the incoming texts, and replace numbers with names from the iPhones contact list, because i do not have all my contacts stored on google. And if possible, the ability to add a new contact, which will also be added on google.

And for an idea about push-type notifications, can you run a background process that theoretically opens up GV Mobile, refreshes SMS texts, and closes, and adds the amount of new messeges to the top right of the GV Mobile icon? This process should be editable, or have options to decide how often to check texts.

I second just creating an application for Growl. I’m not a programmer but they seem pretty simple. I’ve purchased it before it went to Cydia and i’ll donate $10 if it can be tied directly into Growl (not using prowl) so the push messages automatically open up where they are supposed to. $10 doesn’t seem like a lot for all that work but many others will donate too. Thanks for the great app though!

I’m new to gv mobile and tried installing backgrounder thinking that gv mobile might, when running in the background, audibly notify me when a new sms came in (obviously this didn’t work as there don’t appear to be audible notifications even when the app is in the foreground). I just wondering if it would be an easier development path to add audible notification and have the auto refresh function cycle on a timer instead of when clicking the tabs? That way people using backgrounder would have notifications for new vmails and sms messages when not in the gv mobile application.

Also wanted to mention that making the decision to bring this over to Cydia was truly cool and is greatly appreciated. We need to support the continued development of this app with our money to show apple & at&t that they can’t imprison their customers and get all the money too!

Already had bought this on the app store, but now will get the Cydia version to be aware of updates. As to the push being impossible, how does Cylay do it? That’s a JB only app, but has push notification.

@sudopeople Do you have a link to the PHP-based API you’re referring to?

Also the ability to choose which tab opens up first when the app is opened should be added. I dont need to see the dailer everytime just to check me texts.

@jesse what exactly do you mean?

btw sean, if you have access to installous, download voice central, and please try to implement their contacts feature into GV Mobile.

@tehElite
You should check out google sync. that way all your contacts will sync over the air. With google sync and spanning sync you can sync all three ways (contacts on mac (address book app), contacts on iphone, contacts on google)

@Thomas do you mean when i plug in my iphone, and i go under my contacts tab(whatever its called) and add sync with gmail? i tried that once, and all it did was duplicate all of my contacts because the contacts from google added to my current contacts. it did not merge them together. But i will search more about this tomorrow.

@tehElite
The way growl works is it just forwards to Prowl. Instead of forwarding to Prowl it will forward the push to GV Mobile so when you hit open on the push message it will open to the appropriate message and program. The creator of Growl is awesome. He’ll help with it. Guaranteed.

for “push”…couldnt you just have a “backgrounder” option on the app that would keep it running all the time and continuously checking (the time interval could also be an option) for a new sms? and then it could just pop up as if it were a push?

Checked out Google Sync. Pretty awesome, except i gotta merge my contacts together. Now to create a temporary push system.

Sean,
Good for you to “stick it” to Apple by releasing on Cydia. your app rocks! The only thing that could improve it would be better SMS handling (push, less refreshes, etc). AND possibly Google having an official API for Voice.

For PUSH::
What about having a small daemon run in the background? you could use “FakePushNotifications” (http://iphonepulse.com/2009/06/jailbroken-apps-may-be-able-to-send-fake-push-notifications/) to update the user to a new SMS…?

Thanks for your hard work and good luck!

I never considered jailbreaking my phone till I see your app was pulled from itunes and reading TUAW. Less then 5 minutes and I was up and running and now have GV Mobile installed. Great app, thanks for sharing it amongst the masses!

no push???? I hate apple !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

btw, i still want a contacts implementation similar to Voice Central. We should be able to save unknown numbers as contacts, or add the number to existing contacts.

Can someone please release their code that they use for Prowl->iPhone so i can set it up on my computer and get notifications.

I want the ability to choose what page opens up when you see the app. I do not need to see the dailer everytime i open the app to check my texts.

And is it possible to make GV Mobile more like the iPhone Phone app? Since “duplicating functionality” doesnt matter now since it got kicked from the app store, i would love it if there was a favorites tab, and an other tab where i could check my call history, or change google voice details.

And i would like smoother graphics. Right now, i Think the graphics stand out too much, and it distracts me a little.

And the ability to send multiple texts at once. So when creating a new text, after clicking “+”, you can select multiple people, then click done, and it will send the text to those people.

These ideas would be great enhancements to this awesome app.

Now that it’s a jailbroken app why bother using kludgy push notifications at all? Why not just run it in the background and have it notify you when it detects a new voicemail or SMS? It also opens the possibility of having the program completely replace Apple’s dialer by taking over all the phone number commands, so if you tap on a phone number anywhere on the device it will use your app instead of the native dialer. What I’m saying is now that you’ve gone the jailbreak route you can stop kowtowing to Apple’s ridiculous limitations and make the app what it should be.

Since your app is on Cydia now. Is there anyway to integrate my contacts favorites into the app? Very minor but would help me out a lot.

Another good idea is to add a badge that ScummVM has when it’s open. It has a red badge that says “On” so you always know its running in the background and if the phone closes it you know to open it back up. This could be implemented when fetch is put in mixed in with FakePushNotifications on Cydia.

With push notifications I would save $20 a month on my phone bill. So far it seems like Prowl + Growl is the best route, but there’s gotta be a better solution.

Running this in the background constantly checking for SMS’s is a bad idea that will just drain battery life.

Just saying there’s gotta be a way….

i found this link, and it does a very good job with push mail, but it fails at google voice push(atleast for me)

The Google Voice script for greasemonkey does not refresh the page for me, so I am not notified of new texts until i manually click refresh. So I got an auto refresher script, but now, im getting prowled at every 15 seconds that i have new texts. Can someone create an application similar to the push gmail app in the link that works for google voice? this way, there would be less spam of notifications every 15 seconds, and everyone would be happy.

link: http://truvoipbuzz.com/2009/07/enable-google-voice-push-notifications-on-iphone-3gs-tutorial/

You can get something like push working on a Cydia app via a background daemon. It’s not exactly the same, but it is the next best thing. I’ve got iLocalis running a background daemon, and it doesn’t drain battery life.

do this! keep up the good work

@Joe bob

I had the last official App Store version, and out of nowhere, I was sending an SMS via the app and it crashed. I opened it back up and everytime I went to the SMS page, it would crash again. I removed the app, restarted the iPhone, downloaded the latest Cydia App, and the same symptoms are occurring. Is this just me or is it happening to others?

@sudopeople
i would like to try out your script. thanks!

The main problem I’m having with this program has to do with text messages. When I create a new text message in GV Mobile I have a big text box to work with and a keyboard below (this is great). If I am replying to an existing text then I have a tiny box that will only expand to three lines. Plus, I can’t move my cursor to any point in the text message.

I feel like I must be doing something wrong for it to behave this way. Is there a solution?

@Dave
Yeah I agree, a Pre/WebOS version would be fantastic. I actually washed my iPhone accidentally and decided to with the Pre as it is so much cheaper on sprint with my corporate discount. I miss the app store, but I love how my Pre integrates with all Google’s services. Would be awesome to have GV Mobile on there. The app catalog at palm is pretty limited right now.

Sean since its been a few months, Any chances on Push with Prowl?

Please add landscape keyboards too