Gmail now allows for multiple calls at once | Hacker News Reader

Gmail now allows for multiple calls at once

gmailblog.blogspot.com

60 pointscleverjake29 comments

I wish they would make a standalone GTalk app with this feature for Mac so that I could more easily use it to replace skype.

I don't mind going to a website, just wish it wasn't my email. Would prefer making the calls right from google voice as thats the most likely page I'm on when I'm checking voice mail or texts.

I'm in Canada, so I don't have access to Google Voice, unfortunately.

VPN. It's worth the $8 per month for all the USA-only services you unlock.

I kind of like it being in Gmail because I always have that tab open no matter what. I agree that a deeper integration with Google Voice would make a lot of sense though. I've never understood why SMS messages that you send from Google Chat can't come from your Google Voice number. It comes from your Google Voice number when you make a call so it seems strange to me that your texts come from some other number that they assign to you.

Still waiting for them to officially roll internet calling out to Android. There's built in SIP support, but nothing that easily ties in to Google Voice. And there's GrooVe IP, which definitely works well, but it's not native.

They added tethering and apps2sd despite the opposition.

I think there's a Google Voice app. Can't use it myself though, wrong country.

It doesn't do SIP calls it just forwards through your own phone. So you still use your minutes...

there is, but it doesnt use voip. it sends a request for a callback from a random google owned number, then once you answer, it connects you to the number your calling over normal POTS.

> Still waiting for them to officially roll internet calling out to Android.

> They added tethering and apps2sd despite the opposition.

And just like with tethering, the carriers (in America, at any rate) will remove the app and charge an extra fee for it. I suppose it would be a boon for the rest of the world, though.

Tethering is free on T-Mobile

But not on any of the other Big 4 carriers, and if T-Mobile gets bought by AT&T, you can say goodbye to their free tethering as well.

Did you miss this? http://www.businessinsider.com/att-buys-t-mobile-2011-3

My comment is still true as of today.

And I'd say there's at least even odds the sale of T-Mobile to AT&T fails to go through.

Only if you buy your phone at a massive discount from the carrier.

I'm pretty sure that if they catch you tethering, you're screwed no matter where you got the phone from. Not to mention you have to get a Verizon- or Sprint-specific phone if you're on either of those carriers.

What's wrong with GrooVe IP not being native? It's about the price of one month of SkypeOut in the US.

Groove IP is excellent, only drawback is you can't have your gmail client open.

The OS constantly nags you if you're without a SIM card. You're either reminded you have no signal or you're reminded you're in airplane mode (The signal icon on the notification bar becomes useless. There are messages in the notification dropdown and on the lockscreen.)

If WiFi calling were native, support would be built in to turn off these reminders. Connectivity could be displayed where signal is, instead of adding another icon to the notification bar. The app could be moved to the system partition (Coming from a Nexus One, app space was hard to come by. GrooVe IP hates being a system app and you can't move it to the SD card w/o it not starting at startup).

I've bought GrooVe IP, I just feel like a native approach could work better.

Along the same lines, I wish they would integrate the video chat that they have in Gmail. I have a camera on the front of my phone that I have no use for because the only thing that anybody I know uses for video chatting is Gchat. I wonder how explicit the pressure from the carriers is to leave out this functionality.

This is available in Android 2.3.4+

No, it's not. I wish it would be.

It's available on 2.3.4 for a selected number of devices (for all I know the library supporting this feature is chipset specific).

I've got very neat phone (LG Optimus 2x, T-Online G2x in the states) that is blazingly fast, has a front facing camera - but cannot use this, because it's a tegra2 based phone.

Sad face here, Skype on Android is about the worst piece of crap, ever (ignoring my general dislike for Skype, it is so much worse), so no easy 3.000km+ video calls with my wife on my mobile.

It looks like the LG Optimus 2x is still on Android 2.2 so my statement still stands. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Optimus_2X

Err.. No. Your statement was 'works on 2.3.4'. Whatever Wikipedia claims, that's exactly what I run on my device.

So my statement still stands: 2.3.4 does support audio/video calls, but only _for selected hardware_. If LG magically brings out a stock firmware with 2.3.4 tomorrow (and if I'd care enough to want it), they'd need to patch GTalk or rather press Google into supporting my type of handset - or they would have no audio/video support.

Is this the Google Voice plugin for Gmail that we're talking about here?

Technically, no, it's not part of Google Voice. Google Voice is a phone forwarding / management system. GTalk is a component of gmail that allows calls to be made / received. Either can be used w/o the other. However, they do integrate nicely - that's what I use, and I like it a lot.

Conference calling yet? I guess not yet, but this is a good start.

Google Voice does conference calling[1], I'd hope you can invoke it in the same way from Gmail if they call your GVoice number.

[1] http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...

So not allowed to bridge the two for 3-way conference call?

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