INTEGRATE GOOGLE VOICE WITH IPHONE + MMS +VOICEMAIL

Okay folks, itimworld team is in the house. After gettings thousands of request for our team to integrate MMS with google voice and allow itim text app users to use their google voice number with itim, as well as get their voicemails with itim, we finally granted your wishes.
If you don’t have a google voice account/number, you can get one now for free at http://google.com/voice (must be done from a computer for google to give you an account, if you try to do it from a mobile device, google will not give you an account…so find a computer!)

What you’ll get:
1. Send and receive MMS (photos, animations, audio and video) directly from the itim text app (Finally)
2. Send and receive texts using your google voice number.
3. Receive transcribed voicemail and audio MMS via push notifications in the itim text app.
4. Optionally, you can send a reply text to any received voicemail directly from the itim app
5. All in One App, all in one conversation 🙂

NOTE: unlike textnow, itim is far more advanced and offers full MMS capabilities, while textnow is text only with limited mms (no video, no audio, etc). Plus iTim’s unlimited lifetime text with MMS plan is way cheaper than textnow unlimited text only plan ($8 bucks).

Okay, so lets have some fun, lets tell everyone how to do what we have all been asking Google to give us 🙂

GET A PHONE NUMBER FOR YOUR ITIM TEXT / TEXTPRO APP
(IMPORTANT: YOU MUST DO THESE STEPS FROM A COMPUTER FOR IT TO WORK, do not use your ipod or ipad or iphone for this step).

STEP 1. Get iTim Text Unlimited in the AppStore HERE or Get the Free Version with Ads HERE

If you haven’t already done so, download the iTim Text App in the App Store. Here’s the link: http://itimworld.com/gotoitunes.php or just search for itim text.

STEP 2. Add your @itim.me address to your Google Voice Account (it is usually @itim.me ). If you don’t have a google voice account, go to Google Voice (Must be done from a computer only for google to give your an account)

Your @itim.me address is automatically created when you register your itim account, it is @itim.me

To add your @itim.me address to your Google Account, login to Google Voice, go to Settings > Voicemail & SMS, and click on “Add a new email address”.

Put in your @itim.me address in the text box and hit save. After doing so, you will receive the verification text from Google in the iTim Text Application.

To verify your @itim.me address with your Google Account, Simply click the message bubble, select copy from the popup menu and copy the link.

STEP 3. Forward SMS messages to your @itim.me address

Now, you have to forward all your Google Voice SMS messages to your @itim.me address. To do so, login to your Google Voice account, go to Settings > Voicemail & SMS, and check the checkbox next to “Forward SMS messages to my email:”. Make sure next to it is your @itim.me address, not your primary Google Account address. To change it, select the @itim.me address in the drop down next to “Email the message to:”.

STEP 4. (Optional) Forward Voicemail messages to your @itim.me address

Now, you have to forward all your Google Voice SMS messages to your @itim.me address. To do so, login to your Google Voice account, go to Settings > Voicemail & SMS, and check the checkbox next to Voicemail forwarding. Make sure next to it is your @itim.me address, not your primary Google Account address. To change it, select the @itim.me address in the drop down next to “Email the message to:”.

STEP 5. And You are done…Almost

Give your friends your google voice number and have them send an text to your google voice number. You will get it in your itim app. Now, whenever you text your friend, your google voice number will show up when you use itim.

Voicemail: Now when you receive a voicemail, you will get it in your itim text app including the transcript and the audio. You can even reply to the person who left the message with a text or an MMS message.

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IMPORTANT NOTE (Highly RECOMMENDED):

If you only want to receive your sms in iTim but do not want to receive SMS that also get sent to your regular cellphone, here’s how to disable Receiving SMS on your cellphone.

-> In GoogleVoice, Go into settings, then the Phones tab, click ‘edit’ on your cell #, then Uncheck the box that says “Receive SMS on this phone (mobile phones only)”. Don’t Forget to Save 🙂
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STEP 6. Receiving MMS

Here are the ways,

UPDATE:

a. *** New *** If your friends have SPRINT, they can simply send the MMS to your GV number and you WILL  receive it.

 

b. Your friend with Carriers other than Sprint (Ex Verizon, T-mobile, AT&T) can send MMS to your GV number with @itim.me added to its end (Ex. 3105551212@itim.me) and you WILL receive it.

c. Your friends can send a text to your GV number with the word “@photo” and they will receive an auto-message that they can reply to with the MMS and you WILL GET IT.

 

———————————————————— PREVIOUS —————————————————————————-

a. you can either send your friends an itim mms message, when they receive it, they can reply to your itim mms msg with a photo or video message and you will receive it directly in your iTim Text App.

b. Or Your friends can create a new text message on their cellphones, enter your GV number and add @itim.me to the end of it (Ex. 310551212@itim.me) in the TO: field, add a photo or video and send.

Enjoy !!!! 🙂

If you have any issues setting up Google Voice with your iTim Text app, we have 24 / 7 support within the app by texting itim-support. Optionally you can email at itimsupport [at] itimworld dot com.

Enjoy Texting and MMS-ing !

Download iTim Text App iTim Text in The Appstore – http://itimworld.com/gotoitunes.php
PS: Special thanks to RAPHAEL BERRY

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12 Responses to “INTEGRATE GOOGLE VOICE WITH IPHONE + MMS +VOICEMAIL”

  1. Pedro C/progdrummer Says:

    First off, this sounds excellent and made me happy to read since I have an iPhone and I just got my Google number. So thanks!!! I am following these instructions, however, I am stuck on the 3rd step. I already added my itim email (progdrummer@itim.me) and got the verification from google voice (which i copy and pasted the link and confirmed the email). However when I click on my GV settings, SMS Forwarding, it is not allowing me to change the email there. I mean no dropbox shows up (like above under Voice Mail Notifications). Thanks for your help.

    • itimworld Says:

      Hi, it appears that Google will only allow to set the SMS forwarding to the same address as the voicemail forwarding email. So, change the forwarding email in the voicemail section to your itim address and save. Then you should see the itim address appear under your sms forwarding section.

  2. JFBourne Says:

    Thanks a lot this is great.

  3. David (@XIPRELAY) Says:

    This is NOT native MMS support.

    You still have to give the other party a NEW number or email address to send messages to.

    All messages still sent to your googlevoice account with pictures video or voice will get rejected.

    • itimworld Says:

      1. Actually, that’s incorrect. Here’s what you get, you friends can send mms to your GV number plus itim.me (Ex. 3105551212@itim.me) and you WILL receive it in your Google Voice conversation in one app. The primary goal of the service is to keep both mms sent from that one friend and sms sent by that one friend in ONE and the SAME google voice conversation (so the conversation makes sense).

      2. Sending mms is now very simple for your friends, they simple add “@itim.me” to the end of GV number and send the mms.

      3. *** NEW *** with certain carriers and cellphones, you CAN receive mms directly to your GV number without adding “@itim.me” to the end. (Mostly Sprint users) .

      Once again, the goal of integrating MMS with GV is to prevent the GV user from having to use 2 apps (a GV app and an email app) to send both MMS and SMS. With iTim, you can do both in one app in the same conversation without interrupting the conversation flow.
      The second goal to allow the GV user to receive carrier grade MMS (video, audio, photo, ringtone, etc) in the GV conversation flow.

      I hope this helps.

  4. txt the romance back Says:

    txt the romance back…

    […]INTEGRATE GOOGLE VOICE WITH IPHONE + MMS +VOICEMAIL « iTimWorld's Blog[…]…

  5. wordyed Says:

    Doesn’t work for iPhone 2g 😦

  6. Octavius Says:

    This is a nice idea. Do you think that in the future there will be a way for your program to know that a mms is coming threw and automate the process of adding @itim.me. So that the user doesn’t have to do it?

    • itimworld Says:

      Hi Octavius, the app automatically sends a push notification when you receive mms. And yes, actually your friends with Sprint CAN send mms to your GV number (without adding @itim.me) and you will receive it. We expect that we will get more carriers like T-mobile and Verizon very soon. AT&T will most likely be last because they are always slow. So far, we have added sending MMS to t-mobile, Sprint and Verizon using your GV number (AT&T will still show your GV number with @itim.me at the end). Automatically detecting when the friend is sending an mms to the GV number and adding @itim.me at the end is what we got from Sprint, hopefully…. the other carriers will soon follow. We are just glad that GV users can actually receive MMS in their GV conversation one way or another using iTim Text App

    • itimworld Says:

      And the user actually does not have to add @itim.me everytime they want to send an mms to you, the best way is your friends to save your itim contact (GV number + @itim.me, Ex. 3105551212@itim.me) to their addressbook as a contact. So when they want to send mms to you, they just select your itim contact from their address book and send.

  7. Jose ajavier Says:

    I love it

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