Android Only: Google Voice Notifications Get Speed Boost
The good thing about using Google Voice, besides getting to put all your phone numbers under one umbrella, is that you get voicemail transcriptions and notifications about new voicemail messages via SMS for free. The downside is that getting these notifications could take a long time – up to 15 minutes.
If you’re using Google Voice on an Android-powered device, you can forget about the 15 minutes delay. Mountain View-based search engine giant Google gave its Google Voice app some messaging muscle by releasing a new feature called Inbox synchronization. Thanks to this tool notifications are sent within seconds of making it to your Google Voice Inbox. Waiting for a few seconds is definitely a lot better than waiting for some 15 minutes.
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Software Engineer with Google Voice, Andy Hayward explains how to turn on the new Inbox synchronization feature: “To activate Inbox synchronization, open the Google Voice settings on your phone and touch Refresh and notification. Once you have selected the Synchronize Inbox option, you will start receiving faster notifications. Plus, Google Voice will automatically disable SMS forwarding to your mobile phone, so you won’t receive duplicate notifications.”
The Google Voice app for Android has more to offer, from a “keep things speedy” point of view. To be more precise, the app allows you to interact with your contacts a lot faster. Simply click any contact photo and the option to respond to voicemail by email or instant messaging appears.
To enjoy all the functionality provided above you need to get the updated Google Voice for Android app. It is available for download in the Android Market. The app is available to users who have a valid Google Voice account. And it is available in the US only.
In related news, if you set up Gmail to retrieve emails from a secondary email account, and you’re tired of waiting for what seems like forever for Gmail to fetch emails from that account, you can give things a speed boost. You can turn on a Gmail Labs experiment called Refresh POP accounts – when you click the refresh button, messages from secondary accounts will be fetched.
The good thing about using Google Voice, besides getting to put all your phone numbers under one umbrella, is that you get voicemail transcriptions and notifications about new voicemail messages via SMS for free. The downside is that getting these notifications could take a long time – up to 15 minutes. 