Google Voice bits: Now with punctuation, free calls to Canada, and more

Google Voice, the service that many people are still waiting to get an invitation for, as well as the service that is now tempting many iPhone users to jailbreak, has been steadily rolling out some improvements and tweaks.

First up, Google has decided to once again offer a feature that was available when Google Voice was still known as Grand Central — free calling to Canada. Personally, I had not realized that it was taken away, nor can I imagine why they did take it away, but from now on Google Voice users can now make free calls to Canada, as well as the US.

Moving on, Google has also tweaked a few other features. In regards to the voicemail transcripts, it seems they may be a little easier to read now that Google has given us punctuation. Again, that’s another little item that I had not noticed was missing before. This update was fun, mostly because it did not even warrant a special post on the Google Voice blog, it appears to have only been announced on Twitter.

“we added punctuation to voicemail transcripts. Hope you like it. Feedback welcome”

And yes, they did leave the leading “w” as lowercase and in what can only give me a little chuckle, the ending punctuation was left off.

Finally, another tweak that apparently only warranted a Twitter update, the Google Voice answering options have changed. Basically, this means that from now on, you will be presented with the following options when answering a call:

• 1 to accept a call
• 2 to send the caller to voicemail and listen in
• 4 after answering will allow you to later listen to that recording

Read [Google Voice Blog] Via [Twitter @googlevoice]