Apple Finally Lets A Google Voice Application Into The App Store (Again)

Google Voice applications have had a pretty tumultuous history in the App Store. At first, Apple approved them, and the people rejoiced. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, they were pulled, with “duplicating features that the iPhone comes with (Dialer, SMS, etc).” cited as the reasoning. The people were, understandably, pretty friggin’ mad.

Over the past few days, the developers of at least two such applications have been indicating that they’d been hearing good news from Apple, suggesting that the Apps would be making an Apple-approved, no-jailbreak-required return. Sure enough, they’ve just started popping up in the App Store.

The first app to get approval, as far as I can tell, is Andreas Amann’s GV Connect, which just hit the App Store moments ago. Going for $2.99, the app provides Google Voice-powered support for calls, SMS, and voicemail — in other words, everything these apps were originally banned for.

We reached out to Sean Kovacz, developer of GV Mobile, which was pretty much the premiere Google Voice app when such things were initially allowed. His app, unfortunately, is still pending approval — a bit disheartening, given that he was one of the first off the bat in the original round.

Here’s to hoping that Apple keeps approving these things — and more importantly, that they stick around this time.

Android Users Can Now Check In To Foursquare By Using Their Voice

Thanks to a partnership with Vlingo, owners of Android 2.0 or higher-equipped phones can now check in to Foursquare and update their status on Facebook and Twitter simply by speaking into their phones.

To try it out, download the free Vlingo app to your Android handset.

Using your voice, you can then update your location status on Foursquare by saying “check into Logan Airport”, locate your friends with commands like “where are my friends?” and “who’s nearby?” as well as send shout-outs to your buddies (e.g. “shout at Logan Airport waiting to board a plane to San Francisco”).

That’s not all though. The latest version of the Vlingo app also lets users share the service with their friends with the click of a button and also update their status on Facebook, Twitter and/or Foursquare at the same time by saying “social update” and speaking the message.

Previous Vlingo features remain, too: you can still use the app to send text and email messages, search the web, use Google maps and more.

As for BlackBerry, iPhone and Nokia S60 users – they’ll have to be patient for a while before they can start updating their status and locations with their voice.

Vlingo says it plans to roll out this functionality to other supported platforms in a future release but didn’t mention specific dates.

Do you consider voice-driven applications to be an ideal way to interact with mobile apps on your phone? Why (not)?

Greater proportion of free apps on Android than iPhone

A new report from mobile analytics outfit Distimo shows that the Android Market has a much larger percentage of free applications available than Apple’s App Store.

57% of applications available for download on Google Android Market are free of charge, versus 28% of iPhone and 23% of iPad apps. Of the apps available on RIM’s Blackberry App World, 26% are free; the same percentage as those in Nokia’s Ovi store. The proportion of free apps on the Palm App Catalog and Windows Marketplace clock in at 34% and 22% respectively.

As well as comparing free versus paid apps across storefronts, the Distimo report looks at price-points of the paid apps and reveals that the average price of Top-100 grossing apps on the iPhone is $4.01, although the report notes that this figure is skewed somewhat by the inclusion of a couple of obscenely-priced applications such as concierge application iVIP Black (weighing in at a hefty $999.99) and security app iRa Pro (a steal at just $899.99).

The large proportion of free Android applications can largely be explained by the relative immaturity of the platform and the Android Marketplace. Paid-for applications cannot be distributed in all territories yet and users must sign up for a Google Checkout account in order to purchase Android applications. Currently, only 13 of the 46 countries where Android Market is available support distribution of paid apps, and only developers from 9 countries can publish them. As the Marketplace matures, it is expected that more developers will publish chargeable applications on Android.

Pinger’s Textfree Is Massive, Now Over 3.5 Billion Messages Sent

It’s a promise sounds too good to be true: free, unlimited texting to and from your iPhone. And even if a service did manage to offer it, it certainly couldn’t be sustainable, could it? Pinger, a startup that launchedback in 2006 as a voicemail service but has since pivoted in a big way, would beg to differ: the company has managed to become immensely popular on the iPhone by offering free text messages to users through an application called Textfree. And it’s just blown past another major milestone: users have sent 3.5 billion text messages using Textfree since it launched in March 2009.

So how do the do it? The key, unsurprisingly, is ads. Textfree has gotten such massive distribution that it can now turn a profit by placing ads in the application (the company has been profitable since December). Textfree doesn’t insert ads into your conversations — rather, it shows basic display ads which get 1.4 billion ad impressions a month. The application has been downloaded 7 million times which gives you an idea of its reach, but it’s also extremely engaging: users open it an average of ten times a day.

Using Textfree isn’t quite as straightforward as ‘normal’ text messaging, but users don’t seem to mind. The service assigns each user a new telephone number, free of charge. From then on you can text as much as you’d like, and can receive inbound texts that are sent to this special Textfree number. This can obviously be slightly irritating if you already have a phone number (i.e. on an iPhone), but remember, there are millions of devices running iOS that don’t have phone service, namely the iPod Touch. And Textfree gives all of those users the ability to text as much as they’d like, provided they have a Wifi connection.

The iPod Touch has proven to be Textfree’s bread-and-butter — 70% of its users are on the device. And Pinger says that carriers actually like their service, because it turns all of these iPod Touch users into extra nodes — they may be sending free text messages, but they’re certainly going to be sending and receiving messages from users who are on traditional carriers.

Textfree originally launched last year as a premium application that would charge users $6 per year for unlimited texting. That proved to be quite popular, but Pinger found that it could do even better by shifting the app to a free model and relying exclusively on advertising to generate revenue.

Talk in a foreign tongue - Android App

Talk to me translates what you say to a foreign language in real time and says it out loud. Very useful on a foreign trip or even to learn a new language.

Languages supported:

• English
• Spanish
• French
• German
• Italian
• English (UK)

Additional languages are supported if you just want to translate and not listen in.

Watch on Youtube.

Bump your friends phone to split a bill - Android App

Paypal finally brings its original idea to the Android after 11 years. Paypal was originally created to beam money from a Palm Pilot. It pivoted when EBay became more popular and the rest is history.

Features:

• Bump Androids to exchange contact info
• Split a check with a contact
• Collect money from a contact
• Send money to friends and family

If all you are interested in is the Bump feature, try the Bump app to share photos, contacts and apps with your friends.