This article is written to document the available iPhone Apps for utilizing Google’s products and services and contrast them to those available on the Google Nexus running Android’s Jelly Bean OS. It is a living article that I will update as new information comes available until I’ve completed my research. Your feedback is very welcome! Especially if I document any incorrect information.
I’ve personally owned an iPhone 3, iPhone 4 and currently an iPhone 4S. In between my 4 and 4S I briefly owned the Galaxy S3 but returned it because the carrier (Verizon) installed and modified some features in the OS that I didn’t like. Unfortunately, I didn’t thoroughly document my review so I can’t be much more specific!
This article is focused on the comparison of the software, not the hardware. Clearly, Apple’s hardware outperforms it’s competitors in, probably, every way.
Fields that are left blank mean they were untested. Currently, apps are disqualified based more on my opinion then empirical reasoning. Sorry, I’m trying to finish this article before my two year old wakes up. I’ll try to fix it later. But, generally, if it doesn’t support synchronized history and has an ugly UI, and/or doesn’t support Talk or Voice features fully then it’s disqualified. To date, I haven’t actually found an app that does, but GV Voice and GV Phone are pretty close, mainly just missing history.
App Name | Qualification | Google Talk | Google Voice | Multiple Accounts | History Syncing | Other Notes |
Google Voice | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Now includes notifications. |
GV Voice | Yes | No | Yes | No | Voice, not Talk | |
GV Phone | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Let’s you respond to IM’s, but doesn’t let you initiate them. Only texts! |
Vtok | No | Yes | Yes | No | ||
Talkx | No | No | ||||
Talk | No | No | ||||
Talkatone | No | No | Yes | Yes | Voice, not Talk | Doesn’t seem to sync SMS history, but it does sync call history. |
Ultimately, the Voice and Talk apps should be separated on the iPhone. Which is why I’ve made GV Voice the top ranking app. It does exactly what you’d expect. But, if I remember correctly, GV Phone had a much better call quality and nearly unnoticeable delay.
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