Google Voice Feature Requests

I just realized that 40% of my blog so far has been about Google products. I swear I should be a product developer for them (or at least their PR whore). Well, I guess now that we're on the subject...I'm going to write about another Google offering that I'm liking (but not loving): Google Voice.

Well, the truth is, I DO love it. At least I love it so far. It can be soo so much more though. Like that hot girl anorexic girl that needs to eat a few more meat sausages, if you know what I mean ;).

First, here's a video of WHAT Google Voice (GV from now on) is:

So know that you know what the hell GV is, let me tell you where it fails (so far). I'm creating this list so I have a single place to voice all my GV requests and desires. Hopefully, Jesus's magic will cause a Googler to see this list and correct all these shortcomings with some of their 80% time.

My Google Voice Feature Requests:

1. I want to be able to send more than 5 SMS messages at a time. And I want to send them to my groups. One of the great things about GV and Google contacts is that you can create groups of people and have calls and texts from those groups handled differently. That said, I have a group called "Poker" that is a list of all the people that want invitations to my poker game. I want to be able to send out a text message to everyone in that group (about 30 people) with info on the time and location of my next poker game. I don't mind paying for this feature. Just charge me a penny for every extra contact over the first 5. I would totally pay 25 cents to send a mass text message out to 30 people.
2. IMPORTANT: I want to be able to view a threaded history of all sms conversations, calls, and voicemails with one particular contact. This would make Google Voice extremely useful and powerful.
3. I want to be able to toggle a "compact" view of listed items on an off so I can very quickly read through a list of calls/texts without having to see all the details. And I want to be able to view more than 10 items at once. This should be a setting we can toggle (10, 25, or 100 items per page).

Google Voice Mobile Interface Problems:

The following are problems with the interface on the iPhone inside the official mobile safari version of GV:

1. The Dialer needs a redial button. Badly. One solution is to emulate the native iPhone dialer's redial functionality (by pressing "Call" when there is nothing entered...it recalls the last number that was dialed).
2. The "History" (or any list) needs to be refreshed in the background after an action. For instance...if I make a call, that outgoing call should be immediately added to the history list. Right now, I have to hit "refresh" to see my last dialed number (which I have to do all the time because there is no redial function!)
3. IMPORTANT: We need to be able to add a number to our contacts easily. This functionality isn't available in the mobile interface...obviously a key feature for a phone.
4. In the compose sms message screen, the contact field should autocomplete from our address book like it does in the search contact screen (which works really well by the way).
5. While I like that the "top" contact list automatically shows most contacted people...it would be nice if we had the OPTION of being able to create our own favorite contacts list (or simply display lists of our groups, one of which we could designate as "favorites").
6. We definitely need to be able to use copy text inside sms messages! It would also be nice if we could paste into the dialer screen!
7. Text messages that contain urls should be automatically clickable. It would be nice if phone numbers and addresses were clickable as well. People usually text phone numbers so they can be called...and being able to pull up a google map from a texted address would be extremely useful!

That's it for now. This list is just a starting point. I will add to it (and cross off completed items) as I see fit.