digg_url = 'http://www.maclife.com/article/feature/first_look_voicecentral_black_swan_beta';

A Few Caveats

The biggest downside to Black Swan’s use of Google contacts is actually a fault with Google -- rather than the option to sort your contacts by last name as the Mac Address Book and iPhone Contacts allow, everything is sort by first name only, which will produce a few frustrating moments for iPhone users used to having them the other way around. Also, because this not a true SDK-developed app, the earpiece of your device is off-limits, so voicemails can only be played back through the speaker or headphone jack. (Calls are not a problem, since Google Voice is actually a callback service and not VoIP.)

Besides those two caveats, VoiceCentral Black Swan -- even in its present beta form -- works great and delivers as promised. It installed quickly and easily on both our first-gen iPhone as well as our iPhone 3GS, and in most cases seemed even a bit faster at pulling data from Google’s servers than the competing GV Mobile + jailbreak-only app.

A Controversial Beginning

Google Voice was born in 2006 as a free, web-based service called GrandCentral, giving users a new telephone number capable of ringing multiple phone numbers at once -- home, cell, work, you name it -- and even lets you take a call at one number, then shift it seamlessly over to another (for instance, from home phone to cell phone) so you can continue the call on the go, uninterrupted. The service promised “one number for life,” including a unified voicemail box, call screening and much more.

Google purchased GrandCentral in July, 2007 and it seemed for some time that nothing would be done with it -- until 21 months later, when the service relaunched as Google Voice (free, but currently available by invitation only). Among the many new features added to the Voice service were voicemail transcription, free calls in the U.S. & Canada and cheap international calls.

However, like GrandCentral before it, the Google Voice service itself was still tied to a website, and despite a respectable attempt at a mobile version of the site, it was clear that a dedicated iPhone app would make the service even more worthwhile.

That’s where third-party App Store developers came in. For whatever reason, Apple allowed a handful of third-party Google Voice apps in the App Store for months prior to Google attempting to release their own version, which was promptly rejected. But after rejecting Google Voice from the App store, Apple began pulling all the third-party apps, resulting in a veritable firestorm of controversy -- as well as a pending FCC investigation -- that’s been well documented in the media.

Thankfully, independant developers have since managed to figure out a way to bypass Apple's stringent App Store approval process by writing an application that could be used through the iPhone's native web browser. Finally, a way to put that Google Voice invitation to good use. Our only hope is that Black Swan is here to stay, though it's obviously a temporary solution to a bigger issue. 

Well, this all sounds pretty awesome. When will Black Swan be available?

Riverturn’s beta program for Black Swan is currently limited, but promises to open up to more users throughout January and February. If you’re a Google Voice user who doesn’t want to jailbreak your device and is tired of waiting for Apple to get its act together, head over to the Riverturn website and sign up for beta access. While there’s no word yet on what the service may eventually cost, for now the beta is an excellent peek into the future of how developers may get around some of the App Store approval nightmares, and an extremely capable Google Voice app to boot.