I've been playing with Google Voice a lot lately, and for me, the killer feature is voicemail transcription.
Now it's not always perfect, but being able to read a rough transcription of a voicemail makes handling voicemail so much faster and easier.
I'm not quite ready to make the jump to using my Google Voice number as my primary number, I suppose I'm still a little attached to the number I've had for the past few years.
But I did manage to get Google Voice working just as a voicemail replacement, here's how I did it:
- In your Google Voice settings, put Google Voice on Do-Not-Disturb mode. This causes all calls to go immediately to voicemail. More details
- Use special GSM codes to modify where your calls are sent if you don't answer, are busy, or are unreachable:
- If no answer: *61*[google voice number]*11*[seconds delay]#
- Example: *61*14153331212*20#
- This forwarding rule is for when your phone rings, but you don't respond in any way.
- If busy: *67*[google voice number]*11#
- This forwarding rule is for when your phone rings, but you actively decline the call.
- If unreachable: *62*[google voice number]*11#
- This forwarding rule is for when your phone can't be reached, i.e., you have no service or your phone is off.
- More details
Now my iPhone still does everything like it use to, except when calls go to voicemail, they're handled by Google Voice. When I get a new voicemail, I get a text message with the transcript of the voicemail, and I can use http://www.google.com/voice to view those messages (in a visual voicemail sort of way) or dial my own Google Voice number to listen to voicemails the old fashioned way.
Pretty sweet.
4 comments:
This is great to know! I've been considering how to switch completely to Google Voice, but Voice Mail directly to my iPhone's number was a concern.
~/Matt
thanks for posting this! I have an iphone and if I hit decline on iphone when the call comes in it goes to my iphone voicemail not GV. If I let it ring it will go to GV voicemail. Finally a solution! Where do I put these codes in my phone you mention?
Hi Stephanie. Just enter those codes like they're a phone number and you're calling someone. Enjoy!
Josh, I finally got around to implementing this, and it's super-cool. The only hiccup was that I had to leave off the time delay entry when entering my codes (e.g., I had to enter my codes in this form *61*5551234#). Until I did this, I kept getting an error message.
Now I just need a second GV account to use as a call screener based on my contact groups.
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