Trends Hut

Google has just released an update to its Google Voice Android app that seeks to make it easy for users to access voicemails as well as change their Google Voice settings.

The biggest change to Google Voice for Android is the inclusion of widgets, a first for the app. After downloading the app from the Android Market merely go to Menu/Add to Home/Android Widget, and you’ll see “Google Voice Inbox” and “Google Voice Settings” in the list. Choose both and add to your home screen.

Once there, you can easily access your voicemails (think Visual Voicemail, without the propensity for randomly calling your contacts), listen to messages, read transcripts (which are still, sadly, incomprehensible) and respond by free, Google Voice  texts or regular text messages. Google Voice texts do, in fact, work when sent to people who don’t have the app.

Also, you can use the Settings widget to get to the entire app with a single tap, write and send free texts, change your dialing preferences (use Google Voice for all calls, international calls only, ask for every call, do not use for all calls) and engage the “Do Not Disturb” function, which sends calls to voicemail. It also displays your balance.

This new edition does make it much easier to locate, listen to and respond to voicemails, as I previously felt like I had to track down my messages within the bowels of my Eris.