Route calls to phones based on your location
(MoneyWatch) Google Voice is a woefully underrated but indispensable Google service. Google doesn't talk it up that much, and in fact it isn't even an option on the Google Web page -- you have to drill down two layers deep into a list of sites and services before you come across it. But millions of people rely on the voice-over-IP (VoIP) service that delivers free voice and text messaging, voice-to-text transcribed voicemail, call recording, and more.
One of Google Voice's best features is its ability to locate you wherever you happen to be; it accomplishes this by calling all of your phone numbers. But this is a rather scattershot approach. A more targeted Google Voice would ring you up where you actually were.
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Google itself doesn't offer such a service, but SmarterVoice does. This 99-cent iPhone app directs Google Voice calls only to the phone you want based on your current location. To use SmarterVoice, you simply indicate on a map which phone should ring when you are in a particular place.
It's not surprising that this feature isn't baked into Google Voice -- given the minimal functionality of the Google Voice iPhone app, Google doesn't seem much interested in investing in its phone service -- but this third-party app delivers the goods. It works exactly as promised, permitting your Google Voice-connected phones to find -- and ring -- you where you want to be found.
Dave Johnson
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Dave Johnson is editor of eHow Tech and author of three dozen books, including the best-selling How to Do Everything with Your Digital Camera. Dave has previously worked at Microsoft and has written about technology for a long list of magazines that include PC World and Wired.
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