It has only been a few days since Google rolled out computer-to-phone calling on Google Chat. There have already been some suggestions for additions or improvements, but I just discovered some very cool ways to dial phones using Google chat in Gmail.
1. Regular dialing
Simply punching in a number in Google chat (let’s call it the Gtalk phone for simplicity) will result in a call being made. Don’t worry about selecting a country, you can just dial the country code first followed by the number to make your call. For example, I don’t need to select Canada when I call a number in Toronto. I can just dial 1 + area code + phone number and it will work perfectly. As you can see in the picture, the American flag still shows up but my call is placed correctly nevertheless. It saves some time having to go through the list of countries each time before you want to make a call.
2. Call by dialing a number from your contacts list.
There is something you should know about how the calling feature in Google chat recognizes phone numbers: it will recognize numbers exactly as they are shown in your contacts list. This means that if you have a number entered with the country code first (but no “+” sign), you need to enter the number exactly as it is shown. For example, if I want to call someone in my contacts list called “my best friend”, and MBF’s number is listed with +1 614 etc, then I need to punch in +1 614 to get all options in the pop down menu on the Gtalk phone:
Unfortunately, if you punch in +1614, you do not get a drop down list of options:
It also does not work if you do not add in the + before the 1, or basically type in anything that is not exactly in the contacts information. The main issue here is whether or not you add the country code in before your contact’s phone info, whether you have spaces in the number, etc:
3. Type in a name
One way the issue above can be circumvented, short of going through every contact in your list and ensuring the format for each number entered is exactly the same, if by just typing in a name. If you start typing any part of the name of your contact, you will get a drop down menu from which you can select which contact you want to call. For example, I could type in that I’d like to call my “friend”, I would get the following result:
Any other part of the name would give the same result. If I search for “best” I still get the same options:
And if I narrow it down further and input an unique part of a name, for example if I am looking to call my third best friend and type in “third”, this is what I get:
Clearly, the Gtalk phone is smarter at recognizing parts of names than it is at recognizing parts of phone numbers. So next time you would like to call someone who is also in your contacts list, you can just start typing the person’s name. This is fantastic, because I sync my Google contacts with my Blackberry, so whenever I input a new contact on my Blackberry it is also added to my Google contacts list, and next time I place a call using Gmail, I can access it easily.
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- Send SMS with Google Talk
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- The Call Phone From Gmail Feature Starts Rolling Out For US Users
- How to Use Gmail’s New Contact Features
