Google Voice Easy SMS – Send SMS messages for free via Google Voice

Perusing the XDA-Developers Development and Hacking forum, I came across a GEM!  This app works perfectly so far and has a lot of features for such an early build.  This app comes from XDA member msullivan.

The interface is very simple, and the usage of the app is very straight forward.

After a simple install, and then adding your account details, you’re in free SMS heaven (as long as you have a data connection that is)!  In order to get two-way SMS communications to work, simply log into your Google Voice account on your PC, goto Settings, select the “Voicemail & SMS” tab, and check “Email the message to:” and enter your email address that is sync’d on your phone (if you’re using active sync for email, SMS-ing through this process is almost as quick as the real-deal!!).

To pick this up, visit the Dev Thread on XDA and click through to the download site.

The excerpt from the developer’s site:

Features:

• It’s free.  Who doesn’t like free stuff?
• Sends messages via the 3G data connection, meaning your outgoing SMS costs you nothing
• Interfaces with your phone’s contacts list
• Connects directly to Google via SSL to send your message, no man-in-the-middle servers that could potentially harvest your Google Account password
• Signature support
• Send to multiple recipients at once

Easy SMS will become completely open-source after I get the chance to comment some of the code, tidy up, etc.

Requirements:

• Windows Mobile Smartphone (aka Windows Phone); software has been tested on versions 6, 6.1, and 6.5, but the program may work with other versions.
• .NET Compact Framework 2.0
• A Google Voice account
• 3G or WiFi connectivity
• If your 3G plan charges by the kilobyte, be sure to keep track of your usage; this program uses very little bandwidth, but don’t try to blame data charges on me
• You must abide by the Google Voice terms of service when using this program

Google has a bad habit of changing the way stuff works without letting people know.  If you find that this program suddenly stops working, it could be because Google changed a setting and broke the way this program works.  Check this site for info on known issues and patch releases.

Want to make calls easily via Google Voice from your Windows Mobile phone?  Try iDialer and iContact, visit http://supware.net for those amazing programs.

Features to Come & Improvements:

• I really want to stress that this software is brand new, and like all new software will probably have a few bugs and general frustrations.  I’ve tried to be very through in testing, but you never know.  Find something odd?  Tell me how to reproduce the error and I’ll try to take care of it. Toss me an e-mail.
• Contact selection is mediocre, I’d love to make it more intuitive (something similar to Doug Melton’s iContact releases would be very nice, see http://supware.net for that).  If you are a coder and want to give me a hand with that, shoot me an e-mail.  My address can be found on the Contact Me page.
• Doug Melton, if you are reading this, I’d love to see you get something like this working with iContact and iDialer, because those programs are awesome!  Just sayin’