Since its introduction, Google Voice has been described in the telecommunications industry as being the model example of the power of mobile broadband connectivity. In many respects, this popular conception of the Google-offered communications service is true in the fact that it allows consumers an alternative to subscription-based voice plans and texting plans that are offered by the world’s mobile communications providers. However, we use the term “alternative” very loosely, considering that the service has yet to receive official blessings from Apple and that its latest iteration comes in HTML5-based webpage form.

Let’s begin with a brief history. Back in March 2009, Google launched Voice as a free unified VoIP (Voice-over-IP) service in the United States as a way for mobile phone users to send and receive phone calls and text messages over the internet rather than through cell phone towers attached to subscription fees set by mobile service providers. Formerly called "GrandCentral," voicemail, call blocking, call screening and other features are included with the service. In addition, inbound calls and outbound calls within the U.S. are free, and international calls are charged at low rates.

Of course, anyone with the ability to send free text messages and place outbound international calls at incredibly cheap rates is going to be a threat to mobile service providers. Not to mention, if a few hundred thousand users were to catch onto the trend of free VoIP-based communications services, we can only assume that very dreadful events would happen to stockholder shares in the largest U.S. mobile services. No more than three and a half months after Google Voice was brought into the hands of the public, internal corporate personnel at AT&T and Apple began to place restrictions on the service for iPhone users. In fact, Apple went so far as to pull all Google Voice-enabled applications from its App Store, citing the fact that they “duplicate features found on the iPhone.”





With the rejection of Google Voice on the world’s largest mobile app platform, it became evident to the consumer world that mobile service providers like AT&T do not want to face the inevitability of becoming large “dumbpipe” network infrastructures for the sole use of data applications over the web. There are many debates regarding the progression and regression of mobile broadband infrastructures adopting data-centric frameworks, but this is another mattern of concern entirely and one that the Federal Communications Commission has been thoroughly investigating for a matter of years.

Thankfully, Google has recently reintroduced Google Voice service in a web-based form that completely bypasses any dependency on Apple’s precious App Store, all while providing the same experience to a new group of consumers running the Palm WebOS mobile platform.

That isn’t to say that its reintroduction to the iPhone and WebOS platforms isn’t the best iteration of the search giant’s popular communications platform. The latest version of Google Voice for iPhone and Palm users is built on HTML5 and is designed to be run inside of the web browser.

"For quick access to the most important features like 'Dialer', 'Compose SMS', 'Inbox' or 'Contacts,' you can add shortcuts to your iPhone home screen or Palm Launcher -- so cheap calls and messaging will be just a single click away," says the official Google Mobile Blog. "And because the Google Voice web app uses advanced features of modern HTML5 browsers, it offers native app-like performance and speed."

User sign-in to the service can be done by heading over to m.google.com/voice, but only with an HTML5-compliant web browser. Back in December, Google highlighted two significances that modern web browsers promote on the next generation of mobile devices – substantial cost savings for developers, and instant product launches. In the mobile application space, the HTML5 standard is a unified approach to deploying a single product across multiple platforms, simultaneously. In relation to mobile content development, large-scale standards are definitely the way to go.

Google has put together a short video of Google Voice running on HTML5-enabled browsers which can be viewed