GrandCentral showing signs of life; Google releases Vocito
After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Google has finally released something new associated with GrandCentral. No, you still can’t get in on the action if you don’t already have an account and no, this is hardly huge news. It is however, hopefully a sign of things to come as Google further enhances the GrandCentral offering and maybe, just maybe, opens it up for public consumption once again. So, on to the news. Vocito, a word meaning “call” in Latin, is a small application for Mac that was released yesterday via the Google Code pages. Pronounced Voe-Kee-Toe, the app is essentially a dialer allowing users to initiate GrandCentral calls from their computers. The user enters a from number and chooses (or inputs) a destination, then Vocito initiates the call in both directions via GrandCentral. It integrates with Address Book, QuickSilver and Automator as well, which is nice. Is it useful? Maybe. Is it neat? Possibly. At the very least, it’s something new for GrandCentral and a sign that Google has not completely forgotten about the service. Vocito is free to use and can be downloaded via the read link.
[Via Google Mac Blog]
i wish i could get in on the grandcentral action….
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It may be a nice service if they could do as good of a job filtering the spam calls out as they do with the GMail service.
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I don’t have an issue with spam on my GrandCentral number, but the lack of ability to receive SMS is STILL preventing me from making my GC number my primary one.
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This same thing has been on the iPhone App store for the longest, it goes under the Name of Granddialer though, but it connect your calls the same way using your grandcentral account, this is cool cause you no longer have to give people your real phone # to call you, just give them your grandcentral # and everytime they call it grandcentral forward the calls to your real #, grandcentral also gives you the option to display your real # or your grandcentral # when calling people back which is nice too. If you don’t have a Grandcentral account just visit the site and reserved your # and within 2 to 3 days you should receive a email from them with a invite, this is also good is you want a business # where people can reach you but you can block annoying people or just turn off the line on week ends
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I’ve used GrandCentral before Google bought it out. There are only three things I want: SMS capabilities, record a phone call without the warning message & better caller ID that even identifies callers that block/spoof their number.
The recording could be a legal issue, but in PA only one side of the conversation needs to know that it is being recorded without a warrant.
I also wish their was an iPhone app to record calls.
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Google and Apple need to fix the inability of the iPhone to playback the voicemail messages which can be downloaded via links in e-mails sent to your phone right after the call, or via link in their mobile version web page. Once you download the message file, which is a specific type of Mp3, it opens the Quickktime media player but then says it cannot play the format. This has been the same since day one of the iPhone with many complaints being ignoed by both Apple & Google. How hard is it to add the audio codec or have Google use standard mp3 that does play on the iPhone? I agree, this being for MAC maybe Google will resolve the issue FINALLY!
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I thought GC had put a hold on new numbers? I found out about it about a couple of days after Google bought it and entered my info, but haven’t received anything since. That must have been at least 4 months ago.
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@Brandon, Check your spam email folder, sometimes the invites go there
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Have GrandCentral, have had it since the day it started… I mainly use it for calls to Canada (its free that way)….
Its also great for using toward ad’s on Craigslist for selling phones or electronics, and giving to people at the bar (when I wanna block them later on).
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the beta is closed dummy. You can’t get in until they reopen it.
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@blake no is not close, i just got a # for my wife about 2 days ago
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No love for windows users? Looks like my GC account will stay dormant…
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what? i have a GC account and there is no way to send invites anymore. would you like to share how you got your wife a number 2 days ago?
btw, should i be afraid the Google is going to add fees to what is now my primary business number? or that they will drop the service altogether. i mean why would they put the thing on hold for this long?
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I think the plan is to keep current functionality free and ad premium features but who knows at this point… Regardless, if it’s a business line then a reasonable monthly fee shouldn’t be much of an issue.
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If you want to record phone calls, get a foreign GSM phone. Most of them have phone recording option
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keymaker - you must have a good way of getting that number. Share it with us
Been looking to have a GC number for a while now.
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whenever and if ever they open it. Please share an invite with me.
Thank you in advance.
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