A Response To Michael Arrington’s “How I Learned To Quit The iPhone And Love Google Voice”

After reading Michael Arrington’s post on TechCrunch about porting his number to Google Voice and how much happier he is after abandoning the iPhone and AT&T, a few things didn’t make sense to me about his post.

First of all, Mike claims that he has no carrier stranglehold him because he can now move to any service whenever he likes. I don’t see how this makes a difference, if you stay with AT&T or go to T-Mobile. You’d still need to sign up for a service in order to use Google Voice (a service that I absolutely love). So, the claim that no carrier will stranglehold doesn’t make any sense, even if he signs up for a shorter length of time or gets prepaid phone service.

He then pointed out that all his voicemails get aggregated, transcribed then emailed and SMS’d to him. Is that SMS going to his Google Voice application on the Android software or forwarded to his assigned phone number for T-Mobile? If it’s being forwarded to his assigned number from T-Mobile then he’s going to be charged for the text messages and would get two notifications (one for forwarding and a second from the Android app). Isn’t that annoying?But if the SMS goes to his Google Voice number on the Android Google Voice app, he won’t receive it right away since it doesn’t offer push notification. He’ll be able to receive the message once the app is opened or when it’s not idle, that’s according to current Google Voice users on the Android platform.

Arrington also says that the Android Google Voice App allows his Voice number to show up on outgoing calls, not the assigned number to the phone, but that’s not anything new. Anytime you use the Google Voice App, even on the iPhone, it uses the Voice number, not the number assigned phone number provided by the carrier.

Throughout the entire post, Mike says he loves the Google Voice service, which is great, but seems to have forgotten the reason for Google Voice in the first place. Wasn’t the Google Voice service originally designed to offer a second number for business or non-personal calls? If that was the original intention of Google Voice, then why would anyone port their original number to Google Voice? Porting your current number to Google Voice offers certain features like transcribing voicemails, free text messaging (when not forwarding and requires an app) but it’s at the cost of giving away your second number, which is the original idea behind Google Voice.

Mike seems like he’s just upset over Google Voice being rejected in the Apple App store and is comparing the Android Google Voice app to Apple’s lack of a Google Voice app. But that’ll probably change soon. Apple has a way of giving into public scrutiny when it comes to iPhone apps being rejected or accepted, and now with the government getting involved, look for the Google Voice app to be included in the iPhone app store sooner than we think.

It’s understandable for current Google Voice customers with an iPhone to be upset but to completely abandon ship just doesn’t make sense. AT&T service is not bad at all, in fact I think it’s really good. It seems like T-Mobile service is better in Silicon Valley but sucks everywhere else in the country, which is why they’re the number 4 carrier in the United States. And I don’t know how much the line about myTouch 3G opening up web browsers 2/3 faster hold up considering T-Mobile barely has any 3G coverage. Again it could just be a Silicon Valley thing.

The iPhone offers many productive apps but if you still think the iPhone platform is closed and want to do more with it, jailbreak it. I bet most Google Voice users are also people who are tech savvy, so jailbreaking your iPhone shouldn’t be a problem. Once jail broken, you can install the Google Voice app, use it to your heart’s content and do everything Mike’s doing with his the Google Voice service, with the exception of porting.

Right now I have the Voice Central app for Google Voice on my iPhone, (before apps were being removed from the app store) and use it regularly but I would never port my current number to Google Voice. Google Voice serves a purpose, giving me an alternate number to provide for clients, business folks, interviews, and people I come across.

I’m glad Mike was able to take advantage of the Google Voice service using the Android platform by porting his number over to Google Voice, but porting the number takes away from the original intention of Google Voice. If you’re someone who doesn’t care about the second number and just want the extra features offered by Google Voice, then just wait till Google Voice porting becomes public and you’ll be good to go. But let’s not all jump on the bandwagon and think that porting your number, abandoning a carrier for another, is somehow going to save you money, make the experience any better. Will Mike go back to the iPhone if Apple allows the Google Voice app in to the App store? Who knows, one of his guys at TechCrunch thinks so. Gave him 3 months.

I’m also curious to know how much he spent on doing all this? Of course I’m sure there were discounts and freebies involved (like getting the phone to test out for free).