GVMax being used by a couple of WM7 GoogleVoice clients.

I always thought the api and http post functionality of GVMax was pretty nice, but until recently very few people used it.

Now it looks like a couple of Google Voice clients have started to make use of it.

GoVoice and FreeTalk

For iPhone users

There are many reasons to use GVMax these include:
- Being able to get SMS/VM notification on your computer's desktop via GTalk (and being able to reply from the IM program)
- Sending group SMS messages
- HttpPost and general API access to GV.
- Auto responding to SMS

But I suspect most people use GVMax for the original reason it was built for, namely to be able to be notified of SMS/VM on the iPhone. Of those people I would say around 2/3rd of them use it via an IM client on the iPhone such as Beejive or Meebo. This is because until recently this was the most seemless way to integrate GV with a non-jailbroken iPhone.

Recently Apple has allowed a couple of Google Voice native applications into its AppStore. This is great news ofcourse. Unfortunately currently both of these applications do not provide push notifications. This can be fixed by using GVMax together with Prowl. GVMax monitors your GV account for SMS/VM and tells Prowl to notify the user. The cool thing about Prowl is that it is them able to redirect the notification straight into GVMobile+ or GV Connect.

So to these people I suggest that they switch to using the GVMax/Prowl configuration (see my previous posts on how to set that up).

GVMobile+ also released on Apple's store.

Well done to Sean for getting GVMobile+ into the Apple Store. It is a pity that it appeared a day after GV Connect, since I think it is better than GV Connect.

If you need push notifications of SMS and Voicemail, you can follow the same instructions from my previous post but select GVMobile instead of GV Connect (note: I have not tried that yet, so let me know if it works, ie prowl can redirect properly).

Native IPhone Google Voice App at last!

So Apple finally allowed a native Google Voice app into their store. Read about it here:
http://lifehacker.com/5641283/apple-finally-approves-a-native-google-voice-iphone-app-again

It is called GV Connect

It looks pretty nice (the interface is functional although it could use a little polish).

It does not have push notification though, which is a pain. But using GVMax together with Prowl solves this problem. Here is how to do it:

1. Purchase Prowl on your iPhone.
2. Register at GVMax. Note you do NOT need to provide your GV password to GVMax. (If you don't provide your GV password you will need to create a gmail filter manually, instructions available here. If you do provide the password than all the config is done automatically)
   
3. Once registered, change your default notifiers, select Prowl and enter your Prowl API key.
4. Start prowl on your phone, 'Settings'/'Redirections'/'Add a New Redirection'
5. Under 'Application Name' type 'GV SMS' and select 'GV Connect (SMS)
6. Repeat step 4
7. Under 'Application Name' type 'GV VM' and select 'GV Connect (Voicemail)

Now when you receive a google voice SMS, GVMax will send you a prowl notification, which in turn causes prowl to display the SMS as a notification and opens up GV Connect so you can reply etc...

If I get sometime (unlikely) I will post a more detailed tutorial.

Regards,
Hani

GVMax after my move to Android

I have got a number of users asking about GVMax's status now that I have stopped using my iPhone.

Well, I will continue to run and support GVMax since I still use it on the desktop, but even if I was not using GVMax at all I would continue to support it. I would only consider shutting it down if Apple and Google got their problems sorted out. (Even then desktop integration via XMPP is something I use so would probably keep that going).

In the meantime any donations are welcome :)

Hani

Finally release webservice version of GVMax

Today I have finally released the webservice version of GVMax. I hope people like it.

It is loosely based on the appengine version in terms of functionality, but it was an almost complete rewrite.

Maintaining so many copies of the appengine version was getting out of hand. This new version has a lot of new stuff, some of which are not readily visible. For example the GTalk integration is a lot better, providing better feedback and is more robust. If you get logged out of GTalk it GVMax will fallback to Prowl or Email notifications.

I also tried to make it as easy as possible for people to try it out. If you link your account at GVMax to your Google Voice credentials, GVMax will automatically do all the setup for you. Even if you don't on the page that describes how to setup the filters I have a button to set it all up for you (it will ask for your Google Voice password) but will NOT store it.

The new HTTP Post and developer API I also think is nice. I will be working on the API side of things in the next couple of weeks and will be adding what I think is a real cool feature. Stay tuned...

A new Twitter notifier, right now this is very simplistic but stay tuned....

Anyway so far so good, only had to redeploy the app once due to a small bug I found.

New version of GVMax coming soon

Have been working on a 'webservice' version of GVMax. This works a bit like GVMax-Lite used to in that users don't host an application on app engine. Instead they simply sign-up via a web interface.

Signing up is really easy, just enter your google voice email and password and gvmax does everything including creating gmail filters etc...

The Google Voice password is not a requirement. Users can choose not to use their Google Voice password but that means they will not be able to reply to SMS using IM or email. They can still get notifications via email, prowl, xmpp and httpPost (new).

Some of the new features include

HttpPost notifications: A new notification method, where GVMax performs an HTTP post with all the information related to the SMS or Voicemail notification.

More Robust: This code is alot more robust than the current one. For example if you set to receive xmpp notifications and gvmax cannot send you a notification (if you are not logged in) it will attempt to fallback to other notification methods such as prowl. The user is also notified whenever an error occurs.

FREE: Since I will not be installing app engine applications and the whole setup has been automated, all features are completely free.

So what does this mean to existing GVMax users. For those that payed for GVMax-Pro they
can continue to use it as is. I will keep the current buddy server going for a little while, but will
eventually shut it down (for non GVMax-Pro customers). I will stop adding new features to
GVMax-Pro and only release essential bug fixes. It is simply too much work trying to maintain
so many copies of the program (where users don't always upgrade to the latest versions etc...).

Ideally everyone should switch to the webservice version.

This version will NOT be opened sourced since I use some proprietary code in it. The current code of course remains open source.

Open source GVMax day 2

So far so good. A few users have managed to install GVMax without my help (if you are one of these people please consider improving the projects documentation).

Also got some users who paid for me to install the app for them which means my server costs are covered for a couple of months. For them it also means they don't need to worry about upgrades as I will automatically update their applications when new features and or bug fixes are released.

I realize that the installation process is still very hard. If you think you can help me documenting the process or help make it easier please email me at gvmax@gvmax.com

Google Voice on real VoIP phone

Today I got a Grandstream GXP280 Voip phone to play with.
Trying to get my GoogleVoice number to use it via Gizmo.
Will be following these instructions.

Finally got the website updated

After hearing about gvxmpp's problem I finally decided to sit down and finish updates required to the website and code to fully release GVMax as an opensource project.

Installation of GVMax is still quite complex and I don't really expect anyone except for Java developers (with AppEngine experience) to manage a full installation but hopefully with time people will start to contribute installers etc.. I don't have much free time to work on that in the short term.