I finally got a Smart Phone. Below are some notes I made/copied about Google Voice & a SmartPhone user's approach.
Breifly - you don't need the GV App to call out from GV. And with the right settings in GV, a call to the GV number will ring the SmartPhone.
Also, when you don't want the phone to be called by GV, there is a GV setting for that too.
The only number that shows up in the Phone Company records is the GV number.
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Notes:
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Your GVoice number:
- You can set that number to forward calls + SMS messages to different phones.
- When people call your Google number you can specify which devices should ring depending on the time of day, and/or by who is calling.
The GVoice App:
- The official Google Voice app can be downloaded from the Android marketplace.
- The Google Voice app allows you to set your phone to make calls using your Google Voice number and to send and receive SMS messages. You can set when you would like for your droid to use Google Voice under Settings > Making Calls, in the GVoice app.
- When you dial with Google Voice you will notice at the top of the
call screen a white notification box that says "Calling via Google Voice" followed by a telephone number. This number is an access number which then forwards your call to your intended destination. When viewing your billing and usage statement, this is the number that will appear as being dialed.
- When receiving calls via Google Voice the Caller ID will either be the actual caller's number or your Google Voice number. This setting can be adjusted when you log in to your Google Voice account at
http://voice.google.com under Calls.
Question:
- Is there a way to make any call I dial go out with my Google Voice number? This primary benefit of this is that people who receive my calls would see my Google Voice number displayed, rather than my mobile number.
Answer:
You can call your google voice number from your phone (if its registered) and it will ask for your pin number then give you the option (option #2 at this time) to make an outgoing call.
ie: (808) 786-6228 ,,1234,2,5402762537#
Basically, that would call out to my Google Voice number (808-786-6228), pause, log me in (1234), pause, hit “2" to place an outgoing call, pause, then dial the number (5402762537), followed by the pound key (#). Takes a lot longer than dialing straight out from my phone, but it dials it straight from my contacts automatically.
While the formula looks complicated, the best part is you only need to
set it up once. Just copy the part before the destination number and
paste it in front of any contact number, remembering to add the pound
sign (#) at the end. You can do it all from your iPhone, Outlook or
probably whatever other contact manager you use with the iPhone. The
iPhone reads both commas and the letter “p” as pauses.
R96 Notes:
1. I needed to add one comma to each set in the example above.
2. I created a Contacts entry, labeled as my Home Phone like this:
(123)123-1234 ,,,1234,,2,,999-999-9999#
where the 123 number is the GV no., and the 999 no, is the home no.
When I make a call, I first edit the 999 number to the "private" no., and then back when finished with communications.
Hope this helps.