Before I get into my list of features I want in the iPhone app, I would like to point out a glaring omission with the Google Voice system as a whole. That omission is that MMS texting is not allowed. If anyone sends me a text message that includes a picture, I receive absolutely nothing. No notification, no bounceback. Absolutely nothing. I don’t know why this isn’t fully supported. It couldn’t be a storage issue since Google owns enormous properties like YouTube. The amount of data to manage MMS messaging would be less than a drop in the bucket of the data management for YouTube videos. At the very least, I wish Google would deliver me the text portion of a MMS message with an “attachment not included” warning. Get on this already!

Back to the iPhone app. For some unknown reason, composing text in landscape mode is not supported. I most always lock my phone in portrait mode, so it’s not a huge deal for me, but not everyone uses it the way I do. Landscape mode for the Google Voice app is surely needed, especially for people used to typing in that fashion.

There are no zero options for notification sounds! The only sound the app makes is the generic iOS default notify ding. I’ve used the TextFree app in the past and it had a dozen or so options for notification sounds. This would be a very welcomed feature for Google Voice. The fact that it doesn’t exist already is outrageous. This is one of my biggest complaints.

The font size for text composition is entirely too small. If I compose a brand new text message, the font size and window for typing is just right. However, when working in the inbox timeline of a text thread, the font is really tiny, and replying is done in an incredibly small window. I would like this to change. I would even like to see some font size options in the app settings. In fact, the entire interface of the app could be a lot more attractive overall. I’m calling for a complete overhaul of the user interface.

I use the Google Voice app a lot during the course of a day and I feel like the app is a battery and resource hog. I have no evidence to back this up, mind you. It’s just a hunch. At times it can feel a bit slow and clunky. I don’t know what could be done about this, if anything, but I can’t get past the feeling that the app is making my phone work harder than it should. This issue is the least important in my wishlist and for all I know, it isn’t really an issue at all, but I had to toss it in at the end.

I’ve never used Google Voice on an Android phone so I can’t comment on that experience. I do love the service as a whole. I just wish the iPhone app would receive the overhaul it desperately needs. Get on it, Google!

In August, I wrote about the awesome TextFree iPhone app. I’ve used it for a while now and definitely would recommend it to replace the expensive text plans from the mobile carriers. I even paid $5.99 for a year of ad-free use of the app, which I think is well worth it.

However, last week, the free Google Voice app suddenly appeared in the App Store. I immediately downloaded the app. Calls to my Google Voice number will automatically ring my phone, and all text messages are displayed through a push notification. It’s pretty awesome. I don’t intend to replace my voice calls with my Google number, but I do intend to use it exclusively to replace native texting. Make sure you disable the forwarding of texts to your actual mobile number in the preferences to avoid being charged for texts by your carrier.

With Google Voice, all text messages are saved and can be browsed in a web interface that looks and behaves like GMail. That is an impressive feature that TextFree doesn’t offer. I hate to abandon TextFree, but I find Google Voice to be incredibly slick, and the app to be more responsive overall. It will be my exclusive means of mobile texting from now on.

First: I want there to be a user setting to define a default font for composing messages. I don’t like to send messages in the generic font, which I think shows up as Arial on most Windows computers. I like to choose Verdana or Tahoma as my outgoing font. My problem is that I have to highlight my text and change the font from the pulldown list after I compose each and every message. This is annoying. I want to choose a setting in my Gmail preferences to always compose in Verdana, unless I choose otherwise at the time of writing.

Second: There needs to be a method to sort messages by size, or another easy way to single out large attachments. I have written Google in the past and begged for this very feature. Currently, you can only do an advanced search on your mailboxes and check a box that says “Has Attachments”. Within those search results, there is no indication of any attachment sizes without viewing each message individually. It would be to Google’s own benefit to make it easier for users to spotlight giant messages, since deleting some of them would probably result in less storage and backup that Google would have to worry about on their end. It’s ridiculous that this wasn’t a feature from the start.

While on the subject, it would also be nice if they would add the ability to remove attachments from messages, while keeping the message itself, but that isn’t a feature yet, either. Oh well.

Oddly, when I visited my favorite browser identifier website, Browser & OS Identifier, Chrome was listed in the browser details, but the site told me I was using Safari.

So why did Google make its own web browser? Google tries to answer that here. In my opinion, with an already flooded browser market (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Camino, Opera, etc.), I don’t see the need for another browser. Web developers have enough juggling to do already.

In the big picture, I’d rather see an entire Google operating system. If somehow releasing their own browser is a small step in that direction, then I cheer them on. I only hope it doesn’t become another one of Google’s forever-beta programs. Gmail to this day still calls itself a beta product. Get real! It has been a final product for years now. What’s with all the betas? Slap a 1.0 on it and kick it out the door.

I primarily downloaded Google Desktop for the Sidebar widgets. Luckily, my laptop has a widescreen, so the size of the Sidebar without hiding isn’t too space consuming. The Sidebar is slick and shows the local weather conditions, email snippets, a news feed, a notepad, a picture, custom rss feeds, and a Google search box. I am using Gmail for my email already, so setting up the email section was easy. Bear in mind that Gmail is not required. When it comes to the picture, I was at first concerned it may be a waste of time, but it does look really good sitting in the sidebar. I don’t have many pictures stored on this laptop, but I easily added a photo feed from my Flickr page. It works perfectly and pictures are streamed directly to my desktop. The RSS section is also cool. I dabble in some RSS feeds here and there, both in my browser and also online on Google Reader. I rarely think to check any of them. Now with RSS built-in to the Sidebar, I can add my favorite feeds, such as Netflix New Releases and they will appear automatically.

The desktop search portion of Google Desktop is the main purpose of the program. It automatically indexes emails, chats, photos, web history, and more in a variety of different file formats. I haven’t put this feature to the test so far since I only installed the application this morning. I have made good use of Spotlight on my Mac, so I have begun to see the benefits of such an application. I’m sure to make good use of this program.

I think Google Desktop is a winner for the Windows desktop. If the Sidebar does become too cumbersome, which I do not expect, I can enable the auto-hide feature to tuck it away when I am not using it. For now, I want it to be in full-view, so I can read my RSS feeds and see my photos stream in. I am very happy. If you are a Google user and already make good use of a Gmail account, you’ll be sure to love Google Desktop.

Fast forward to today and you’ll find plugs for Gmail and GoogleDocs, business solutions, advertising programs, and a link to info about Google. In addition, there is a bar across the top of the page with links for other search methods (web, images, news, etc.). In the right corner on that bar is your Gmail account name, a link to account info, and a link to sign out.

I predict that some day Google will adopt a more Yahoo-style home page and move their once basic search page to a subdomain such as search.google.com (that link as of this post takes you to the same page as google.com, in case you were wondering.) Time will tell on my predictions. Google has a lot of services and applications under its belt now. Surely they don’t want the company’s front page to be as extremely basic as it once was. As for the users, we can look back and cherish a time when it was more simple. We can still enjoy the page as it is today, but I’ll bet it will slowly start to get filled in over time.

Below is a screenshot I just made tonight of the current state of google.com:

Nothing matches the speed and simplicity of GMail. It has the most storage of any service, only uses text advertising, has the awesome “conversation” way of viewing email, killer search within your mailbox, and it responds as fast as a desktop mail client. I like how it automatically checks my mail continuously without me having to hit a “check mail” button all the time. And most of all, I love how it displays pictures in email attachments. When I click “view”, I actually get to view the full-sized picture in a new browser tab. In Yahoo, even after all these years, you still have to have it virus-certified, choose to download it, then save it, or open it on your PC in an image viewer to see the full-sized version. That is nonsense.

If that isn’t enough, GMail even offers free POP mail access to your mailbox from a desktop email client. Yahoo users must subscribe and pay a yearly fee to have this feature. Don’t even get me started on Hotmail. I quit that horrible service many years ago. It isn’t even a consideration.

The only annoying thing about GMail that I have found is the silly Google Chat that is now built-in that lets you instant message other GMail users that are logged in. I don’t care for that. At work, it tells me it cannot find the service (probably due a company firewall), but luckily, you can turn that off in the options at the bottom of the page. I find it cleans up the interface a little and (I think) makes things run faster. Who uses it, anyway?

This program does it all very well. I get the most use out emailing photos with it, and making web photo galleries. It does both of those so quick that, without the program, I wouldn’t even want to bother anymore. It’s quick and easy photo corrections are pretty capable, and the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button is always fun to toy with. The best feature of this program is that it never actually edits any of the original photo files! It stores a hidden .ini file in each photo folder that keeps track of your edits, rotations, etc. from Picasa. But keep in mind that it doesn’t substitute for hardcore photo editing, such as you would do in Photoshop.

There is a actually new version of Picasa that Google released recently, which is version 2.5. It adds some new features, hardly any of which I’ve tried yet. If you haven’t yet tried Picasa at all, then you are crazy. Try it out and you won’t go back. Read more about Picasa at: picasa.google.com.