One Phone To Rule Them All

For the first time, a wireless carrier has brought together two ingredients that when blended yield the greatest mobile phone setup to date. That carrier is Sprint. The ingredients? The iPhone 4s and Google Voice Number porting.

What makes this so profound? Google Voice truly shines when and only when calls or texts come in to the actual GV number. iPhone users really haven't been able to leverage GV as outbound calls and texts showed the wireless number.

Why was that problematic? Because responses to those calls and texts were direct to the iPhone; effectively leaving GV out of the loop.

No longer. Sprint's long standing relationship with Google an established ability to import your GV phone number (or visa versa) plus ir's newfound relationship with Apple mean the puzzle is complete. Texts dictated to And sent with Siri come from the GV number. Tapping a contact instantly dials and the recipient sees th call coming from the GV number. Conversations can be started hands free via Siri in the car, resumed quietly in a meeting while by tapping on the phone, and then finalized back at the computer from google.com/voice. It feels a bit futuristic.

One unexpected side effect: For good or bad, we are locked into Sprint until other carriers figure this out.

One unexpected oddity: This only seems to week on individual accounts -- neither family nor corporate.