Sean Kovacs

It’s pretty pathetic that I have to post this, but some people take what they hear on the INTERNET and freak out and start telling Apple lies…that they heard on the INTERNET.
Here it is, plain and simple, from the horse’s mouth:

• Yes, I do collect your OS version number
• Yes, I do collect your device type
• Yes, I do collect your device ID
• NO, I DO NOT collect ANY other information (user names, passwords, etc)

Just about any company/developer serious about application development will collect this type of information for determining user base.

I just sent in the latest and greatest to Apple. Change log and screen shots below…

+History parser fixed
+Voicemail speaker button revised
+Grayed out the * and # digits
+Multiple Sign-In support
+5 and 6 tones were the same – fixed
+SMS contact look-up goofed when entering in a number
+Call Screening and Presentation revised
+Open To Tab fixed
+Data Sync fixed
+SMS character counter
+SMS text disappearing when typing fixed
+Copy menu for the Keypad showed up when nothing was there to copy
+Tones are fixed
+URL handlers tweaked
+Non-alpha numeric username login fixed
+Refresh individual SMS messages in Reply view
+Take Calls From is now Call Method
+Removed Offline dialing section and moved into Call Method
+iPod music will still play when opening the app (will pause and resume on VM playback)
+Bluetooth headset support for VM playback (when speaker off)
+Clears number dialed after making a call
+Pull to refresh
+New calling method, plus simplified older methods (no more entering in “Phone to Ring”)
+GV Credit Balance
+Contacts/Groups fixed

-Favorites gone until v1.0.4 (it’s worth it, trust me, I’m a doctor)

After a long year and a half of being home sick, GV Mobile (+) makes an epic return to the App Store. The app is still propagating to all the servers, so it may take a bit before it shows up. Here is the direct link: GV Mobile +. I’ll be blowing away some promo codes via Twitter (@seankovacs) once I get them AND if #gvmobile trends on Twitter, I’ll set that bad boy to free for the night.

I am truly EAGER to help you guys having issues with the app. I have near real-time response for people with issues. Just hit me up via email. Try it…

Question: I bought this on Cydia, why am I having to buy it AGAIN!?!! >:|??

You don’t. Next Saturday night, it will go FREE for the night for all my Cydia folks.

Earlier today I re-submitted GV Mobile + (former GV Mobile) to the App Store. It’s currently undergoing review which should last 7-13 days before hitting the U.S App Store. It WILL be on the Canadian App Store, but realize you have some extra hoops to jump through to make Google Voice work. GV Mobile + will cost $2.99 , the same as when it first hit the App Store over a year ago. After a week or so, I’ll have a window of time set with minimal notice for people to get the app at the cost of $0. Just follow me on Twitter, because that is the ONLY place I will announce it.

While it’s hard for me to remember every change that occurred between the old App Store (FREE Cydia) version and this new version, here is a short list:

Keypad

• New graphics for the keypad
• Internal favorites (Apple doesn’t provide access to the iPhone Favorites)
• Copy/Paste into keypad
• Phone number recognition (when you type a number in your contacts, it shows the name)
• Tones stay on when key held down
• Delete button when held down keeps deleting

SMS

• Full landscape support
• Redesigned Reply/New SMS view
• Copy SMS messages
• Contact look-up when entering in name in the New SMS view
• Action menu for each SMS which allows quick call back and adding person to iPhone contacts
• Name look-up for SMS messages from a phone number (will cross reference your iPhone contacts for a name)

History

• Action menu for each history entry which allows quick call back, SMS, and adding person to iPhone contacts
• Full landscape support

Voicemail

• Full landscape support
• Transcriptions
• Improved play bar (play/pause, scrubber, transcription toggle)
• Action menu for each voice mail entry which allows quick call back, SMS, and adding person to iPhone contacts

Settings

• Multiple accounts
• Offline dialing (initiate a call without using data connection)
• Data Sync (multiple methods)
• Default Area Code (since GV requires 10 digit numbers, if set, you can still enter local number without entering the area code)
• Open to Tab
• Enable/Disable Do No Disturb
• Change Call Screening settings
• Enable/Disable Call Presentation

A lot more in the back end.

Upcoming Major Features

Push is planned.
Alternate dialing is planned.
VoIP is planned, but will take some time.
A number of other features are slated for the next update.

Jake comes through once again!

There will be some planned downtime soon (couple days). I’ll be moving this “joint” to another spot on Ma Earth.

In other news, GV Mobile looks hopeful to return to the ol’ mighty App Store.

Tentative game plan:
+GV Mobile + (hopefully GV Mobile) hits the App Store at $2.99.
+A week or so later, I will change the price to FREE for a good 12 hours or so. I’ll give notice via Twitter and this blog (if the fucking site doesn’t go down – Godaddy! Sorry, I’m pissed)
+After the 12 hours or so, back to $2.99

Thoughts being…if you bought it way back and didn’t get it from Cydia, you can still wait a bit longer to get it for free. If you bought it way back and bought it on Cydia…or if you just bought it on Cydia, you can wait a bit because the version hitting the App Store will have the same feature set.

Planned changes are:
+full landscape (except for dial pad)
+revised keypad (sounds, and minor stuff)
+graphics (hi-res)

I think that’s it for the initial release.

With the recent jail-break for OS4, you could imagine the millions of people jail-breaking their phone. I know Kyle at ModMyi is seeing it, as well as many others. Anyway, here is some tips to commonly asked questions:

• If I bought GV Mobile + on OS3.x, will it transfer? Yes! Just use the same Cydia login you used to purchase GV Mobile + before and it will recognize the old purchase and allow you to re-download for free.
• Why am I having problems download GV Mobile + (Host Unreachable, Error 500, etc)? See above. The repo GV Mobile + is housed on is ModMyI and it’s getting slammed pretty hard. And no, that repo isn’t running on some shitbox…Kyle has some pretty bad ass hardware behind it. Just please be patient…please. I cannot do anything for you.
• Why is GV Mobile (not +) crashing on X, Y, Z screen? The parser that pulls the information in for voicemails, history, and SMS is older than the one in GV Mobile +, so it’s not up-to-date with the new stuff Google threw in. Will I update it? Yes, when I get to it. It’s free after all…and I do have a life and job. Just sayin’…
• I bought GV Mobile when it was on the App Store, do I have to pay for GV Mobile +? While I want to say no, I can’t. Apple doesn’t tell me who bought it, so there is not AUTOMATED way for me to verify your past purchase. I reduced the price on Cydia ($1.99) so you didn’t have to break open the piggy bank. Pfft
• Sean, I’m getting a lot of SMS spam on my iPhone number, WTF man? Yea, me too. What’s the dealio? Spam filtering at the head-end…hmm. Anyone want to partner up and make this happen. Let me know.
• Are you going to update GV Mobile + to take advantage of eye-ball display, multitasking, etc…? Currently, no. I don’t own a new iPhone, nor will I ever, so there is no advantage for me doing so. UPDATE: <zombie-voice>Yes, yes I will.</zombie-voice>  <—that should be an HTML5 feature.

All good things must come to an end…perhaps. While poking around in the HTML5 SMS data feed, I discovered that there is an attribute labeled “free_sms_remaining”. I don’t recall seeing this before, but none-the-less it’s there now. To verify my findings (before Google removes it), you can spoof your User-Agent to “Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16” and navigate to https://www.google.com/voice/m/x?m=list&l=sms&o=0&lm=10 (I would sign-in to Google Voice before hand). Cheers!

UPDATE: Also found “free_minutes_remaining”.

Update available to fix the “frozen” SMS/History/Voicemail tab.

This update utilizes the new data feeds for Google Voice. It will be much faster since there is less overhead.