<i>"The downside to Google Voice has always been that it’s not actually a phone. When you dial someone with the Voice app, it dials your contact, then dials your real phone, and connects you together – you can’t just dial right out on a computer or non-phone smart device like an iPod touch and use a headset."</i><p>On a computer it can "dial" GChat, so you don't need a "real phone." I don't own a landline or a cellphone so I would know.<p>But I never knew you could make calls from apps. I have an iPod Touch 4, so this is going to be awesome. Now my friends might actually think I'm normal.
There were apps to do this a long time ago, at least 3 years ago I remember texting and voice calling with the first iPod touch with retina screen with a VoIP app. I forget the specific app name though, and the mic wasn't that great. I remember calling someone and they said that they couldn't really hear me, but they guessed what I had called them about anyway because of the specific time. Google's apps might be more convenient than the app I used and/or cheaper, but they weren't the first.
It says: There have been several inexpensive or free “turn your iPod Touch into a wifi phone” gimmick apps or services over the past few years, but they’ve always been a hassle (listen to a 30 second ad before your call begins..) or short-lived – so, I’ve just always dialed directly with my brick phone, and told my contacts “my real number is the google voice #, ignore the caller id”.<p>Which is not really true, skype have been providing real phone service for years.
This is good news and because I don't make calls frequently, I'm selling the iPhone and iPad for the next Verizon iPad mini with month-to-month data. Just tired of paying $90/mo for voice minutes that are mostly forfeited anyways. VOIP and telephony apps all the way!
Just an FYI: you cannot send/recive MMS (this includes Group Messages) with a Google Voice number. This doesn't matter to many of us, but if you still have contacts that rely on these protocols just be aware before you port your number to GV.
Buddy has been doing this for a while with an old 3GS. Problem is if he's not on wifi he can't take a call so I end up leaving home a voicemail and waiting hours for him to call back.
More like "Google turned my iPod touch into one of their data-hoarding drones. But I don't care about my data, as long as I get a free service in return!".
So... voice, the telephony app can be used for sending text messages.
And hangouts, a text based chat service can be used to make phone calls. Great logic there google!