So this morning I took some time to play around with Google Talk/Mail/Voice and sadly, its not all Central.
I'll give it the credit it deserves. It does a lot but one thing it doesn't do is SYNC between the mailbox and the voice mailbox. Well, in reality, neither does Google Voice. Here's why.
A voice mail message now sits in three places.
1. Your Google Mail box. It is sent to you as an email, with transcription.
2. Your Google Voice inbox. It resides there forever.
3. Your Google Voice call in In box. It resides there until you listen to the messages. And, you have to listen to oldest to newest.
That means, if you don't call all the time to listen and delete your messages, they are all still there and you have to wade through them. Not exactly fun, and clearly not in sync.
There were 50 messages in my inbox that were read or played from within the email that when I dialed in to listen still were flagged as new before I posted this. With multiple user behavior possibilities what works for one, should work for all.
Posted by: Andy Abramson | August 28, 2010 at 06:56 AM
Ricky, I just tested this and I was able to go to other websites, and other programs while on a Gmail Google Voice call.
I was using Chrome.
Posted by: DigiSal | August 27, 2010 at 09:40 PM
i use Google Voice exclusively for everything and for me everything is in sync. I, however, do not have voicemails or text go to email. So that is probably your problemo Andy and Joshua.
It helps to have an android phone with Synchronization on in the Google Voice app. Once you turn that on, you turn off the email of voicemail because you get an instant notication of Texts and Voicemails. I believe you have an android phone Andy. Do you Joshua?
On a desktop. Use Google Chrome with the Google Voice extension by Google and you have even more synching. I never have to touch my phone when I am by the Desktop for texting or hearing voicemails. And now with Gmail Calls.
Messages are not in my Call In Voice Box as you describe. In fact, nothing is ever in there unless I mark a voicemail as unread. Which I do sometimes when for whatever reason I cant hear, or read, the voicemail via the google voice app on my Android.
Posted by: DigiSal | August 27, 2010 at 09:37 PM
One thing that makes a bit of this easier is the google voice app for your phone (bb or android, apple?)
It allows you to listen to whichever voicemail you want, read the transcription, and archive/delete/manage the voicemails.
If you have the voicemail alert being emailed to your phone as well its an additional keypress in your mailbox to manage that one.
It would be nice to automatically archive or mark as read the voicemail notification email as soon as you listne to it within google voice (app or web)
Posted by: Joshua Chubak | August 27, 2010 at 08:18 AM
I am able to continue the call even after going to another tab or application, assuming GMail page is left in the background.. But I can originate and answer only from the GMail page.
Posted by: twitter.com/aswath | August 27, 2010 at 08:08 AM
You also have to remain on the same page of Gmail to be able to continue the call - if you click away, even to another Google service (Greader, Google Docs, etc), you lose the call.
Posted by: Ricky Cadden | August 27, 2010 at 06:43 AM